The Ringling Magazine | October – December 2018

Coco Fusco, La Confesión (detail), 2015. 30 minute single channel digital film. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York. © Coco Fusco/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

5401 Bay Shore Road

Sarasota, FL 34243

941.359.5700 ringling.org

Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums GOVERNOR

The Honorable Rick Scott

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

John E. Thrasher President

Dr. Sally E. McRorie Provost

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Steven High

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Nancy J. Parrish, Chair

Judith F. Shank, Vice Chair

Jeffrey R. Hotchkiss, Treasurer

Sarah H. Pappas, Secretary

Ellen S. Berman

Thomas J. Charters

Warren R. Colbert, Sr.

Daniel J. Denton

Rebecca Donelson

Kenneth J. Feld

Frances D. Fergusson

Darrel E. Flanel

Margaret Dunwoody Hausberg

Robert D. Hunter

Thomas F. Icard, Jr.

Dorothy C. Jenkins

Thomas W. Jennings, Jr.

James A. Joseph

Michael A. Kalman

Nancy Kotler

Patricia R. Lombard

Lisa A. Merritt

Tina Shao Napoli

Michael R. Pender

Margaret A. Rolando

Javi Suarez

Edward M. Swan, Jr.

Howard C. Tibbals

Larry A. Wickless

EX-OFFICIO BOARD MEMBERS

David Schuler, Chair, Volunteer Services Advisory Council

Leslie Young, Chair, Docent Advisory Council

Elizabeth Dimmitt, Community Representative to the Board

ISSN 2165-4085

The Ringling is always exploring new ways of engaging our diverse audience through exhibitions, performances, and programming. This fall that mission is clearly evident.

In October, we present Twilight, an exhibition of work by interdisciplinary contemporary artist Coco Fusco. The exhibition will be shown in the Keith D. and Linda L. Monda Gallery for Contemporary Art, where we will feature several video projects as well as the premiere of To Live in June with Your Tongue Hanging Out. Additionally, a larger-than-life sculpture, Tin Man of the Twenty-First Century, will be installed on the estate, and is sure to inspire lively debate. Both new pieces were the result of a commission awarded to Fusco as winner of the 2016 Greenfield Prize at the Hermitage Artist Retreat.

Visitors will also be able to see new work from our permanent collection, as well as old works in a new light. This past summer, The Ringling continued the reinstallation of the original twenty-one galleries in the Museum of Art. The reimagined spaces highlight British art, Neoclassical art, and Italian art of the eighteenth century. The galleries utilize modern wall colors, improved lighting, and updated labels and didactics to enhance our visitors’ experience. November marks the opening of Woodblock Prints from Postwar Japan, located in the Center for Asian Art. This focused show will be the first opportunity for visitors to view The Ringling’s outstanding collection of prints.

This season also debuts our newly expanded Art of Performance programming. Our contemporary performance series, New Stages, will now feature multiple productions—across genres—throughout the year. Each will incorporate a level of community engagement through lectures, classes, and more. You may learn more about the 2018–2019 New Stages Season in the enclosed insert. The Season officially kicks off October 19 and 20 with percussive performances by Matthew Duvall, followed by a courtyard celebration on October 20—complete with fanfare and fireworks!

Thank you for your continued support and loyalty. These dynamic exhibitions, programs, and events are made possible by your support. I look forward to seeing you in the galleries soon!

Steven High Executive Director

This publication is a partnership with Sarasota Magazine

The Ringling's 2018-2019 programming season is supported in part by Sarasota County Tourist Development Tax revenues.

Hiratsuka Un’ichi (Japanese, 1895–1997) Stepping Stones in the Afternoon (detail), 1960. Woodblock print, ink and color on paper, 33 7/8 × 24 7/8 in. Gift of Charles and Robyn Citrin, 2017. SN11585.111.

COCO FUSCO TWILIGHT

A selection of recent video projects by internationally acclaimed interdisciplinary artist and writer Coco Fusco will be on view this fall at The Ringling. Organized by The Ringling, Coco Fusco: Twilight will feature signature videos, including the world premiere of two new works---a video and an outdoor sculpture—that respond to the current political and social climate in Cuba as it transitions to a post-Castro era, and comment on the current state of US politics. Both new works are the result of a commission awarded to Fusco as winner of the 2016 Greenfield Prize at the Hermitage Artist Retreat.

For the past three decades, Fusco has been researching and creating works about Cuba. These have included videos, performances, and texts. Her most recent book, Dangerous Moves: Performance and Politics in Cuba (2015) is an analysis of social commentary in post-Revolutionary Cuban performance art.

Twilight offers more recent video works that meditate on Cuban society in a time of political uncertainty. Taken

together, they reflect on the 1959 Cuban Revolution’s failure to live up to its promises under the Castro regime and the Cuban state’s legacy of suppressing dissent. The Empty Plaza (2012) explores the massive Plaza de la Revolución in Havana. Ostensibly a public space for assembly, the plaza lies conspicuously vacant a year after similar spaces were the sites for democratic movements during the Arab Spring.

The Confession (2015), a video created for the 56th Venice Biennale, concerns the government’s imprisonment of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla in 1971 and Padilla’s later public “confession” that he had betrayed the Revolution. Fusco explores newly uncovered government documents that provide insight into the “Padilla Affair” that drew international condemnation upon the Cuban state. In La botella al mar de María Elena (The Message in a Bottle from Maria Elena) (2015), Fusco presents the recollections of poet María Elena Cruz Varela who was attacked by mobs and arrested after coauthoring a public declaration for political reforms in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union.

As part of Twilight, Fusco will premiere her newest video project, Vivir en junio con la lengua afuera (To Live in June with Your Tongue Hanging Out) (2018). This work was realized as part of her 2016 Greenfield Prize award and continues her investigation of the intersection of culture and politics in Cuba. The video features the actors Lynn Cruz and Iris Ruiz, and poet Amuary Pacheco, all of whom have experienced harassment and censorship by the Cuban government for their work. Vivir en junio reflects on the life of Cuban author Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990), who was imprisoned and persecuted for his homosexuality and criticism of the Castro regime.

In addition to the video works featured in Twilight, The Ringling will unveil a new sculpture by Fusco entitled Tin Man of the Twenty-First Century—a socialist realist style monumental statue that comments on current US

leadership.This new work is part of the tradition of artists engaging in political satire, comparable to Honoré Daumier’s famous caricatures mocking French King Louis Philippe’s excesses and abuses of power in the nineteenth century.

Presenting Tin Man of the Twenty-First Century, in concert with Fusco’s work on Cuba as part of Twilight, is a powerful reminder of the importance of dissent and freedom of expression in an open, democratic society.

Art of Our Time is supported by Gulf Coast

Opposite page: Coco Fusco, La Confesión (detail), 2015. 30 minute single channel digital film. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York. © Coco Fusco/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. This page, from the top: Coco Fusco, Vivir en junio con la lengua afuera/To live in June with Your Tongue Hanging Out, 2018. Video still. Courtesy of the artist and Alexander Gray Associates, New York. © Coco Fusco/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Coco Fusco, The Empty Plaza / La Plaza Vacia, 2012. 12 minute single channel digital film. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York. © Coco Fusco/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Coco Fusco, La Botella al mar de María Elena, 2015. 44 minute single channel digital film. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York. © Coco Fusco/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

This exhibition has been generously supported, in part, by the Amicus Endowment, the Bob and Diane Roskamp Endowment, the William G. and Marie Selby Foundation Ringling Museum Endowment, and The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art Foundation. This exhibition is in collaboration with the Greenfield Prize at the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Sarasota County, Florida.

Community Foundation.

MATTHEW DUVALL TRANSIENT LANDSCAPES

Matthew Duvall, percussionist for the GRAMMY® winning ensemble

Eighth Blackbird, is drawn to opportunities that move music forward through innovative performance. As an advocate for new music by living composers, he saw a great opportunity for collaboration during his most recent visit to The Ringling. As he walked through the estate, he realized that though often conceived singularly as sacred space for what is viewed as static art, the modern museum is not a mausoleum—it is an immersive nexus where art is alive and actively engaged. The museum visitor no longer needs to be a passive observer or a silent spectator but has the opportunity—through performance and programs—to become an active and dynamic participant.

With this realization, he began to explore new perspectives in performance within The Ringling, and discovered an opportunity in a sometimes overlooked masterpiece—the Bayfront Gardens. Viewing the flora and fauna as interactive art, the landscape became the canvas for a crossdisciplinary experience. Duvall's new piece, Transient Landscapes, will create a progression of percussive performances celebrating and utilizing the landscape as an instrument of sound—using a lake as an ambient reflective surface, a banyan canopy as an amphitheater, and the historic architecture as context.

Duvall enlisted the help of fellow musician Matthew Burtner, an Alaskaborn composer and sound artist specializing in concert chamber music, interactive new media, and ecoacoustics. Ecoacoustics develops musical procedures from abstracted environmental processes using data expounded from nature, and turns it into music. He listens to the wind and the waves of the ocean and asks questions such as, “what does it sound like when trees breathe?” He then records these natural sounds and uses them within his compositions. Duvall will also be joined by collaborators such as John Corkill, Alex Monroe, Justin Peters, and Sean Connors in the performance of Transient Landscapes

New Stages, The Ringling’s contemporary performance series, will kick off with two works by Duvall. On Friday, October 19, there will be a performance of Inlets at the Historic Asolo Theater; and on Saturday, October 20, Transient Landscapes will invite participants to tour The Ringling grounds and gardens with the art of percussion as their guide.

The program will conclude with The Rhythm of the Ringling: Season

Kick-off Party in the Museum of Art Courtyard featuring a DrumMantra jam session with Matthew Duvall, a special performance by Kraken Quartet, fireworks, and a DJ and dancing.

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

Cynthia Gaeta

The Ringling is a place where friends and family gather together to experience art and culture in both new and familiar ways. Although she upgraded to the Reciprocal membership in order to enjoy admission at multiple venues in the area, Member Cynthia Gaeta brings her family to The Ringling at least twice a month for different opportunities including Family Programming (WEB and ROAR!), and to establish irreplaceable, lifelong memories with her family.

“Every family has their special place. A place where adventures are embarked upon and priceless memories are made to be stored in the banks of our hearts forever. Ringling is our special family place. I want my son to know that the love we have for him and our family bond is as strong and deep as those of the roots of the Banyan trees that grace this exquisite place. I want him to know that someday in the long distant future when he is an adult, if he ever feels lost, he can come back here and remember our memories, our bond, our love and find his way home again.”

THE JOHN AND MABLE RINGLING LEGACY SOCIETY

On March 22, over 140 members and guests of The Legacy Society were honored at a special luncheon held at Ca’ d’Zan. Members who have included The Ringling in their estate plans, and those who have been supporters for over 15 years, were recognized.

Christine Jennings, a Ringling member, volunteer, Board Chair Emeritus, and

Legacy Society member spoke about why she chose to make a planned gift to The Ringling. A planned gift can be made simply by including a provision for The Ringling in a will, establishing a gift that provides a steady stream of income during one’s lifetime, or including a gift from your current IRA. Unlike outright contributions, planned gifts allow you to

provide a future benefit to The Ringling while meeting current personal and financial goals.

The Legacy Society accounts for approximately $40 million in contributions to The Ringling Inspires Campaign, and is a critical component of The Ringling’s future funding.

To learn more about the Legacy Society, please contact:

Declan J. Sheehy

941-359-5700 x 5807 or

declan.sheehy@ringling.fsu.edu

Pictured, left to right: Declan Sheehy, inductees Jeff Hotchkiss, Francine Blum, Steven High, Patricia R. and James M. Lombard, Paul Hudson.

MEMBER EVENTS

OCTOBER

THU, OCT 11 • 5:00 – 7:00 PM

MEET AND GREET WITH COCO FUSCO

Join us for a behind-the-scenes preview of the upcoming exhibition Twilight Meet the artist, Coco Fusco during the reception as we hear firsthand her thoughts on creating the piece. For Circle Members and Friends of Art of Our Time, invitation only.

TUE, OCT 23 • 10:30 AM

CONVERSATION WITH THE LIBRARY

Artful Science: Great Illustrated Natural History Books

Join David Berry, Assistant Director, Academic Affairs, as he highlights some of the finest illustrated natural history books from the late Renaissance to the early Victorian era. He will examine the role these books played in making natural history accessible to the general public, and in sharing the results of scientific research with the scholarly community. Reception for Friends of the Library will follow in the Art Library.

FRI, OCT 26

10:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 2:00 PM, 3:00 PM

TEA DEMONSTRATION

Guests will experience the central act of chanoyu: drinking a bowl of freshly whisked matcha in the Nancy L. Ellis Tea House. Dr Rebecca Corbett will prepare tea in the manner of the Urasenke School of Tea of which she is a student.

For Friends of Asian Art. Reservation required, Six spaces per session are available on a first come, first served basis.

Please note: Attendees must be able to sit on a floor mat during the ceremony, and shoes must be removed prior to entering the tea house.

SAT, OCT 27 • 3:30 – 4:30 PM

MEET AND GREET WITH MOVING ETHOS

Join us for the launch of Spotlight Florida with the dance company Moving Ethos as they begin their six-month residency at The Ringling.

For Friends of Art of Our Time, invitation only.

NOVEMBER

THU, NOV 8 • 9:00 – 10:30 AM

STATE OF THE RINGLING & COFFEE AND CONVERSATIONS

Join Steven High, Executive Director, for an update on what we have accomplished at the start of the 2018-2019 Season. For Supporting, Partner, and Circle Members, invitation only.

Member Preview Events for Woodblock Prints from Postwar Japan Drawn from The Ringling's rich holdings of postwar Japanese prints and local collections, the works featured in this exhibition speak of the interplay of art, identity, a changing geopolitical climate, and personal ties over the latter half of the twentieth century.

WED, NOV 14 • 5:30 – 9:00 PM CIRCLE MEMBER EXHIBITION PREVIEW AND DINNER

Circle Members are invited to join us for a cocktail reception, exhibition preview, and dinner as we take a first look at The Ringling’s new Japanese print collection.

THU, NOV 15 • 5:00 – 7:00 PM VIP PREVIEW

Supporting, Partner, and Circle Members are invited to a reception to preview the exhibition before it opens to the public.

SAT, NOV 17 • 10:00 AM – NOON MEMBER DAY

Members are invited to preview the exhibition before it opens to the public. Join us for family activities, catered refreshments, and an additional 5% discount at the Museum Store.

MON, NOV 26 & TUE, NOV 27 10:30 AM

ART LIBRARY TUTORIAL SESSIONS

Elisa Hansen, Head of Library Services, will cover how to search for Ringling Art Library titles on the FSU catalogue, how to access databases and full-text articles online, and where to find more information about your own collection. For Friends of the Library, invitation only.

A Season for Our MEMBERS

Make plans to experience these Member-exclusive events that highlight The Ringling’s special exhibitions, dynamic performances, and stimulating programs.

DECEMBER

DEC 7 – 9 • 10:00 AM – 5:30 PM

ANNUAL MEMBER HOLIDAY SALE

Members receive 20% off. Clearance items excluded.

MEMBER DISCOUNTS

Members receive a discounted rate for Ringling by the Bay tickets! Join us on the Bolger Campiello for live music and dancing. Food and beverage will be available for purchase. Check ringling.org for schedule and availability.

Due to the popularity of Ringling by the Bay, we encourage you to purchase tickets well in advance.

MEMBER TRAVEL

Traveling with the Museum Travel Alliance (MTA) connects Ringling Members with other museum enthusiasts. Offering curatorial expertise and behind-the-scenes itineraries, MTA gives travelers the opportunity to see the world and experience incredible art and culture first hand.

Learn more at ringling.org/travel

Stay in the Loop!

Member events are also published on our website. Discover all the latest Member events by visiting: ringling.org/members

A

AT THE RINGLING

AT THE RINGLING A

Holiday Splendor is a fun-filled annual event that provides a chance for all of us to support the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots program in Sarasota and Manatee. Since 1947, Toys for Tots has fulfilled its mission of collecting and distributing Christmas gifts to less fortunate children throughout the United States.

Throughout the evening, the enthusiasm and generosity of our Members and guests are on display in the Visitors Pavilion as the collection of donated toys grows. Because of you, The Ringling is a top contributor to the toy drive every year!

The highlights of Holiday Splendor are the local school choirs, bands, orchestras, and dance groups that perform seasonal favorites throughout the estate. Ca' d'Zan, fully dressed for the holidays, is open for guests to stroll through. The Museum of Art, Circus Museum, and Kotler-Coville Glass Pavilion will also be open.

Holiday Splendor will take place December 6 from 5:00 – 8:00 PM. Each guest donating a new, unwrapped toy will receive free admission to Holiday Splendor. Toys are always available for purchase in the Museum Store, where you may take advantage of your 10% Member savings and support this great cause. For guests unable to donate a toy, Admission is $15 for adults, $5 for children 6-17, and free for children 5 and under.

MAGICAL NIGHT

MAGICAL NIGHT

Learning Together: A NEW MUSEUM MODEL FOR HOMESCHOOL FAMILIES

The Ringling launched its new Homeschool Third Thursday program in January 2018, and it has rapidly become an incredible success. Each month, it serves hundreds of homeschool families from the surrounding counties, most of whom return month after month to explore new facets of The Ringling’s collections.

This innovative program creatively serves a growing contingent of the Florida school system: homeschooled students. The Ringling’s regular school tours, which serve public and private school students, are designed for specific grade levels and center on content that meets particular learning standards. However, homeschool groups include all ages, ranging from infants to high school. This range of ages necessitated rethinking the structure and content of their museum visits.

The solution? Homeschool Third Thursdays! On the third Thursday of each month, we station educators and volunteers throughout the galleries, inviting families to move from station to station at their own pace. At each station, the families are asked to look carefully at the museum object, have an open-ended discussion about what they are seeing, and then participate in a hands-on activity that reinforces the connections between the object and the featured theme. Themes this season included Art Edits, Art of Asia, Portraits, Circus, and Mythology.

Our homeschool families have been incredibly receptive and appreciative of this program. One parent wrote, “Your hard work and dedication to our children does not go unnoticed. You have created some art lovers with this program—and now circus enthusiasts.” During May’s session, another parent said that the program "taught her whole family to feel comfortable visiting the Museum and confident in their ability to extrapolate meaning from the objects on display." The Ringling is always striving to better serve our diverse community, and our Homeschool Third Thursday program has allowed us to do just that.

WOODBLOCK PRINTS FROM POSTWAR JAPAN

In the first decades of the twentieth century, young Japanese artists discovered in the woodblock print a medium of expression equal to painting. Historically, Japanese printing relied on the division of labor between craftsmen working under the direction of a commercial publisher. Seeking control over the artistic process, this new generation began carving and printing their own designs, cultivating a spontaneous, rough aesthetic. Produced in small editions, these so-called “creative prints” (sōsaku hanga) were circulated mostly among artists and in coterie magazines, and exhibited in art society shows. After the Second World War, the creative print movement gained international recognition, especially in the United States. Woodblock Prints from Postwar Japan is the first exhibition to showcase this rich area of The Ringling’s collection.

The central figure of creative prints was Onchi Kōshirō, a pioneer of modernism credited with creating Japan’s first purely abstract work of art in 1915. A teacher, mentor, and benefactor to younger artists, Onchi ran a monthly meeting, the First Thursday Society (Ichimokukai), for printmakers to share and critique each other’s work. Within a year of the publication of the group’s first folio of prints, Japan had lost the war, and Tokyo teemed with half a million American soldiers.

Amid the ruins of war and bitterness of defeat, Onchi and his comrades began to rebuild their artistic community. Somewhat opportunistically, they released a folio of prints targeted at foreigners. The First Thursday Society continued to meet in Onchi’s home, and his daughter Mihoko, a translator for the G.H.Q., began introducing Americans interested in art to her father. These guests supported the Japanese artists by organizing exhibitions, writing about their work, and buying prints for themselves and collectors back home. Creative prints thus became a channel of diplomacy and friendship between occupied and occupier.

Included in this exhibition will be two prints from Onchi’s Poem series, a loose collection

Above: Onchi Kōshirō (1891-1955), Poem Number 23: Fish, 1954. Multi-block print, ink and color on paper, 17 5/8 x 14 5/16 in. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Karl A. Bickel. SN8037. This page, right: Hiratsuka Un’ichi (1895–1997), Stepping Stones in the Afternoon, 1960. Woodblock print, ink and color on paper, 33 7/8 × 24 7/8 in. Gift of Charles and Robyn Citrin, 2017. SN11585.111. Opposite page: Yoshida Hodaka (1926–1995), Red Wall, 1992. Photoetching and color woodblock print, ink and color on paper. 47 1/2 × 71 1/8 in. Gift of Gordon Brodfuehrer, 2018. SN11604.

of lyrical abstracts from the early 1950s inspired by the small forms of the natural world. Printed from wooden blocks, as well as leaves, string, and even the fins of a fish, these artworks are conceived with an experimental spirit and sensitive eye for composition. Onchi's Poems are among a group of over eighty objects given to The Ringling between 1961 and 1972 by local statesman Karl Bickel—the first Japanese prints to enter the Museum’s collection.

Western collectors were drawn to Japanese artists’ masterful technique, which celebrated the material qualities of wood, paper, and printing colors. Many artists depicted subjects that evoke an old Japan, untouched by modernization, often simplifying and abstracting compositional elements in a way that appealed to contemporary tastes. Stepping Stones in the Afternoon by Hiratsuka Un’ichi, one of several Japanese artists who would travel to the United States, depicting old mill stones arranged rhythmically across a garden pond in stark

black and white, appeals at once for its bold graphic power as well as its evocation of the past. This print is one of almost five hundred donated to The Ringling by Charles and Robyn Citrin—a gift that has established the Museum as an important repository of modern Japanese prints.

Although Japanese artists today have an ever increasing variety of media at their disposal, the visual and material characteristics of the woodblock print hold an enduring appeal. The luscious color and texture in Yoshida Hodaka’s monumental Red Wall was achieved through a combination of photography, etching, and woodblock printed elements. Hodaka is the son of Yoshida Hiroshi, a key figure of the commercial “new prints” (shin hanga) movement that sought to revive ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) which flourished between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Hiroshi’s picturesque landscape images were coveted by Japanese and Western collectors. Rejecting his father’s nostalgic style, Hodaka instead pursued abstraction. Red Wall is one of the newest additions to The Ringling’s growing Japanese print collection, donated to the Museum this year by Gordon Brodfuehrer. Thematically and visually wide-ranging, the works featured in this exhibition speak of the interplay of art, geopolitics, and friendship over the latter half of the twentieth century.

Special thank you to Douglas B. Thweatt for the establishment of the Paul Grootkerk Memorial Endowment for exhibition support.

Miniature Locket Album of TOM THUMB

Pamphlets were written about the lives, courtship, and marriage of this celebrated couple and were also available for purchase.

The Somebody’s Luggage locket is a wonderful example of a keepsake celebrating the marriage. About the size of your thumb, the small, brass locket may be opened and inside is an accordion pleat of six small, double-sided brass frames, each containing two prints each of the couple and the wedding.

In 1863, the news of the Civil War was briefly left off of the front page of newspapers and replaced by the wedding of Tom Thumb (Charles Stratton, 1838 – 1883) and Lavinia Warren (1842 – 1919). Held at Grace Church in New York City (802 Broadway at 10th Street), it was a lavish social event that captivated the country. The wedding guest list of 2,000 names included the Astors, Vanderbilts, and President and Mrs. Lincoln. P. T. Barnum funded and promoted the “Fairy

In 1949, ten-year-old Nilsa Fraser was given a Somebody’s Luggage locket while visiting her grandmother, who was a housekeeper in Dorking, England. The Lady of the house, Miss Dawn, gave the locket to Nilsa saying, “Please take care of it because it is very precious.” For safe keeping, the locket was kept in her mother’s jewelry box. The family moved to Toronto, Canada, in 1956; two years later, they moved to Sarasota and the locket safely traveled with them.

Later, Nilsa moved to New York, but the item remained with the family in Sarasota. Returning to Sarasota in 1960, she again found her treasured locket in her mother’s jewelry box. Knowing the special history of the locket, and the mandate to take care of it, she realized that it needed to find a permanent home. This year, Nilsa Fraser donated her Somebody’s Luggage locket to The Ringling, where it will be preserved so that visitors may enjoy her precious piece of history.

op to bottom: Wedding of Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren (detail) Engraving, 7 15/16 x 9 1/4 in. Museum purchase, 1951. SN1546.132.27. Somebody’s , miniature locket album of Tom Thumb (Charles Sherwood Stratton), 1838 – 1883, and Mercy Lavinia Bump Warren, 1842 – 1919, The Fairy Wedding ca. 1863 – 1865 or later. Engraved, embossed sheet metal brass photographic locket with 12 albumen silver print photographs. The locket is hinged and closed with a clasp, containing an accordion pleat of six doublesided brass frames, each containing two albumen silver prints commemorating the marriage of Tom Thumb to Lavinia Warren in 1863. While the original photographs were done by Mathew Brady (1822 – 1896), it is thought that the album and reproduction prints were assembled by the American firm, E. and H.T. Anthony, which printed many of The Fairy Wedding souvenirs. Height: .9 x .7 in., depth: .3 in. (closed). SN11603.

Three more galleries in the Museum of Art have been reinstalled during the summer of 2018, as the major project to re-envision all 21 original museum galleries continues. This exciting work is transforming the visitor experience of The Ringling’s collections of European art through new arrangements of artworks, updated labels and didactics, much improved lighting, and modern wall colors. The first phase of the project, completed in 2016, created three new gallery spaces showcasing still life painting, Dutch and Flemish art in the seventeenth century, and the art of the Rococo. Much more than mere rehangings, these new galleries have been a resounding success with visitors. After such a successful start, we were thrilled to be able to continue this work in the summer of 2018.

Proceeding in the south wing of the museum, these three galleries focus on British art, Neoclassical art, and Italian art of the eighteenth century, providing new historical context for these important strengths of The Ringling’s collection. Gallery 16 is the new home of British art, highlighting the museum’s remarkable portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, and Allan Ramsay, and sees the return of the well-loved Moonlight Landscape by Joseph Wright of Derby. Gallery 17 focuses on the Neoclassical movement in the

UPDATE: MUSEUM OF ART REINSTALLATION

eighteenth century, with the extraordinary Dream of Joseph by Anton Raphael Mengs returning to view alongside favorites by Angelica Kauffmann and Benjamin West. Finally, Gallery 18, by far the largest of the three spaces, is devoted to the museum’s exceptional collection of eighteenth-century Italian art, featuring paintings by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Canaletto, Francesco Guardi, Giovanni Paolo Panini, Giovanni Michele Graneri, and Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari. Previously dispersed over three galleries, these works are now united in one space, allowing for a deeper understanding of period style and greater opportunities for comparative viewing.

Top to bottom: Joseph Wright of Derby (British, 1734-1797, active in Liverpool, Italy, Bath and Derby), Moonlight Landscape, c. 1785. Oil on canvas, 24 5/8 × 29 3/4 in. Museum purchase, 1972. SN906. Anton Raphael Mengs (German, 1728-1779, active in Dresden, Rome, and Madrid), Dream of Joseph, 1774-79. Oil on wood, 42 1/2 × 32 13/16 in.. Bequest of John Ringling, 1936. SN328. Giovanni Paolo Panini and Workshop (Italian, 1691 - 1765), Hermes Rescues Odysseus from Circe, 1718. Oil on canvas, 51 x 63 5/8 in. Bequest of John Ringling, 1936. SN172.

HOLIDAY SHOPPING at

The Ringling MUSEUM

MUSEUM STORE SUNDAY

NOV 26

Featuring local glass jewelry artist Silvia Engle of Mi Tierra (a). Members receive 20% off store purchases.

TRUNK SHOWS

DEC 7

Chocolate by Maggie Prittie of Prittie's Chocolat (b)

Jewelry by Brae Hanson of Azure Art Studio (c)

Textiles by Cherie Ketchum of Mima Designs (d)

ANNUAL MEMBER HOLIDAY SALE

DEC 7– 9

Members receive 20% off store purchases, including items featured in the trunk shows shown below. (excludes clearance items)

DEC 8

Chocolate by Maggie Prittie of Prittie's Chocolat (b)

The Gardener Vases of Elle Terry Leonard (e)

DEC 9

Chocolate by Maggie Prittie of Prittie's Chocolat (b)

Jewelry by Kim Schmeits of SugarSandSilver (f)

MEMBERS SAVE 10%! (excludes clearance items)

Two Locations

Visitors Pavilion and Original Circus Museum