On View & Upcoming

Mark your calendars for the opening of these inspiring new exhibitions and installations at the Toledo Museum of Art.

Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence and the Mbari Club

June 3–Sept. 3, 2023

Experience Nigeria in the 1960s through the artistic exchange that took place between African American artist Jacob Lawrence and Mbari Artists and Writers Club members in Nigeria. The show features 125 paintings, sculptures, reliefs, and works on paper by artists like Lawrence and Duro Ladipo, Twins Seven-Seven, Muraina Oyelami, Asiru Olatunde, Jacob Afolabi, and Adebisi Akanji. It also includes letters Lawrence wrote to his friends in the United States about his experiences in Nigeria and copies of Black Orpheus (1957-67), the Nigeria-based literary journal that showcases the works of modernist African and African Diasporic writers and visual artists.

Together, the objects transport visitors to Nigeria during a time when several countries in Africa and around the world were establishing their independence. Black Orpheus displays how artists grappled with representing their respective national and cultural identities while depicting visually striking works during the beginning of the postcolonial period throughout the African continent and other parts of the world. The show is the first museum exhibition of Lawrence’s Nigeria series, exploring a littleknown period in his life that included the nine-month stay in Nigeria in 1964 documented in this exhibition.

Through the works on view, visitors will gain insight into Lawrence’s conversations with Nigerian, Ethiopian, Sudanese, and Ghanian artists and discover how those interactions influenced him long after he returned to the United States.

Seeing Stars, Divining Futures

Feb. 3–June 18, 2023

From representations of the zodiac to tarot cards and images of fortune tellers, Seeing Stars, Divining Futures highlights the long history of human interest in the cosmos and their impact on earthly affairs. The exhibition showcases works from the Toledo Museum of Art’s collection that demonstrate the integration of art and divinatory practices across eras and cultures.

Expanding Horizons: The Evolving Character of a Nation

Opens Mar. 18, 2023

Explore new ways of understanding complex histories through the themes of mythmaking and religion. More than 80 objects from TMA’s collection offer a powerful lens for discovering a multiplicity of American stories and voices.

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg–Machine Auguries: Toledo

Apr. 29–Nov. 26, 2023

The natural dawn chorus is slowly taken over by artificial birds in Ginsberg’s stirring, immersive installation that uses artificial intelligence as its medium. Tickets are free for Museum members and $10 for non-members.

Beth Lipman: ReGift

Aug. 12, 2023–Sept. 1, 2024

ReGift recreates a three-quarter life-sized diorama of the parlor in TMA founders Edward and Florence Libbey’s Old West End house. It also symbolically reinstates works once owned by TMA, emphasizing Florence’s involvement in building the Museum’s (and Toledo’s) legacy.

Museum Store Spotlight: Craig Fisher

Loving art can go beyond admiring it in museum galleries. Becoming a collector supports the work of living artists and allows you to bring creative expression home. Original art by more than 250 emerging and established regional artists is waiting in the Museum Store’s Collectors Corner—sculptures, glass, prints, photographs, pottery, and more will spark thought, creativity, and wonder. For now, enjoy exploring the work of Craig Fisher in this season’s Museum Store Spotlight.

“I draw them and then I discard them,” says Craig Fisher. The artist is referring to the sketches and concepts that inform his intaglio works—iterations he remains determined to not get attached to.

He resists investing too much in one sketch because the forms are constantly mutating, serving more as loose mental road maps than as final blueprints, which makes the results—nearly three feet tall, elaborate etchings that emerge from 600-pound steel rollers— even more awe-inspiring. Fisher commands a level of detail in his creations that hint at a complex, maze-like imagination.

The printmaking machine, the one holding the aforementioned massive steel rollers and the copper-etched master plate, gives Fisher an intimacy with each print, as he pulls them by hand one at a time. “There’s no doubt that a well-made ink jet print, on archival paper stock, looks every bit as ‘rich’ as a hand-pulled etching,” Fisher writes. “But I will bet that the signed etching has more spirit and character.” It’s this embrace of old-world techniques and modern, fantastical story that make Fisher’s works so compelling.

His history ties him closely with the Toledo community—he studied fine arts at the University of Toledo, where he focused on printmaking, painting and graphic design, with a stint at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. His work is part of the collections of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Purdue University Galleries, and others. You can shop Craig’s works and more in person or online at tmastore.org