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SAM Art: Unlike any St. Anthony you’ve ever seen

Seattle Art Museum on Apr 23 2013

An ingenious interpreter of grand Western portraiture traditions, Kehinde Wiley is one of the leading American artists to emerge in the last decade. This spring, the museum acquired the artist’s most recent work.

Since ancient times the portrait has been tied to representations of power. Wiley’s paintings are highly stylized and staged, and draw attention to the interplay between a history of aristocratic representation and the portrait as a statement of power and the individual’s sense of empowerment. For this canvas—based on a Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres stained glass window depicting St. Anthony of Padua—Wiley asked a young man in New York to be his model. The formal pose contrasts sharply with the man’s contemporary street clothes, objects and emblems, including a Black Panther patch.

Anthony of Padua, 2013, Kehinde Wiley (American, born 1977), oil on canvas, 72 × 60 in., General Acquisition Fund, 2013.8, © Kehinde Wiley, image courtesy of the artist and Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, California. Currently on view in the European Art galleries, fourth floor, SAM Downtown.

SAM Art: What are decorative arts?

Seattle Art Museum on Apr 16 2013

What, exactly, are the decorative arts? The answer might surprise you…

Part of the answer would certainly include metalwork, and objects meant for use. This contemporary tea and coffee service, commissioned for the museum by Julie Emerson, The Ruth J. Nutt Curator of Decorative Arts, ties the museum’s historical American silver to the present. The design for this service was envisioned by master silversmith John Marshall when he walked into the expanded Seattle Art Museum. He believes that a strong clarity of space is an invitation to the art, and that three-dimensional, sculptural objects are a way of making the space have movement. The silver rises from a carved acrylic base that bears a visual similarity to rock crystal.

Beyond this stunning set, the decorative arts are varied and wide-ranging. Tomorrow evening, please join Julie Emerson as she discusses the decorative arts, and explores their histories and presentation.

Members Art History Lecture Series: Curator’s Choice with Julie Emerson

What, Exactly, are the Decorative Arts?

April 17, 2013, 7:00–8:30 pm

Plestcheeff Auditorium, first floor, SAM downtown

Where and why did the terms “decorative arts” and “fine arts” originate? In the history of Western art, what were the roles of trade guilds, value, and geographical accessibility? Are paintings and sculpture favored over ceramics, metalwork, glass and textiles today? How do curators in European and American museums define and explore artistry, craft and design? Addressing these questions, Julie Emerson, The Ruth J. Nutt Curator of Decorative Arts, will place decorative arts in an historical context and discuss their significance at SAM.

SAM Art: Examining, interpreting, analyzing in public

Seattle Art Museum on Apr 12 2013

The multidisciplinary field of art conservation involves the examination, interpretation, analysis and treatment of cultural, historic and artistic objects. Professional conservators rely on their knowledge of both the humanities and the sciences in order to understand the creation and production of material culture in the past and present, and to ensure its preservation for future generations.

After acquiring an extensive traditional technical understanding of clay and glazes, artist Robert Arneson experimented with these elements to push the medium in expressive and colorful new directions. Pool with Splash is currently undergoing conservation treatment before being put on view. This process has been visible to the public in the Modern and Contemporary art galleries at SAM since March. The final two days of public conservation are next Wednesday and Thursday, 17 and 18 April, so stop by SAM before then to see this behind-the-scenes activity.

Conservation intern Josh Summer working with Pool with Splash, 1977, Robert Arneson (American, 1930-1992), ceramic with glaze, 18 1/2 x 145 x 116 in. overall, Gift of Manuel Neri, 82.156, Art © Estate of Robert Arneson/Licensed by VAGA, New York NY. Conservation treatment on view to the public in the Modern and Contemporary art galleries, third floor, SAM downtown, on Wed., 17 April and Thurs., 18 April.

SAM Art: Small art, big story

Seattle Art Museum on Apr 2 2013

Sometimes, collecting small has a big result.

In 1919, following his service in WWI, Richard E. Fuller traveled to “the Orient” with his parents, sister, and brother. Their trip took them from Vancouver, BC, to China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Burma, and India. However, the latter part of the trip nearly did not happen, as Fuller fell ill with appendicitis while in Nikko, Japan. His brother, Dr. Duncan Fuller, ultimately performed emergency surgery, with their father, Dr. Eugene Fuller, assisting. While Richard Fuller convalesced, his family explored the Nikko area, and began collecting small figures known as netsukes.

Years later, when Richard Fuller and his mother Margaret founded the Seattle Art Museum, they donated this large group of small objects to the museum’s collection. These small figures remain part of the museum’s holdings to this day, a collection for which SAM is famous around the world. The Duncan MacTavish Fuller Memorial Collection of netsukes is named in memory of Richard’s brother, and in honor of the unexpected turn of events in 1919 Japan.

Poetess Ono-no-komachi in her old age, sitting on a log, 18th-19th century, Japanese, ivory, 1 1/2 x 2 7/8 x 7/8 in., Duncan MacTavish Fuller Memorial Collection, 33.352. Currently on view in the Seattle Asian Art Museum, Volunteer Park.

SAM Art: American Abstraction

Seattle Art Museum on Mar 27 2013

Early in the 1940s, artists in New York began to develop an expressive, abstract style of painting that was a stark departure from previous ideas, both artistically and historically. Up until World War II, the center of artistic production in the West had been Paris, and artists from around Europe, the United States and South America had flocked to the French capital to study and to work. This changed profoundly in the 1940s, when artists in New York developed bold new practices.

Abstract painting dominated the artistic discourse beyond the 1940s, into the 1950s and early 1960s, but the concerns began to shift from the energy of the painted gesture to the flatness of the canvas. In this painting by Morris Louis, this is achieved by thinned paint that saturates the canvas and melds with the support.

Theta Gamma, 1960, Morris Louis (American, 1912-1962), acrylic resin on canvas, 101 3/4 x 130 in., Gift of Marcella Brenner Revocable Trust, 2011.28. © Seattle Art Museum all rights reserved. Currently on view in the Modern and Contemporary art galleries, third floor, SAM Downtown.

Thirteen Ideas For How to Spend Your Earth Hour

Seattle Art Museum on Mar 22 2013

Earth Hour is this Saturday night, March 23 from 8:30–9:30 pm. What is Earth Hour as opposed to Earth Day? It is a global, grassroots effort to inspire environmental action and change, by turning off all lights and electronics and give it a rest, already. The earth was here looooong before iPhones and tvs. And Thomas Edison. SAM will be participating by turning off lights and other power sources at our three sites: The Hammering Man will stop hammering; Alexander Calder’s The Eagle, in the Olympic Sculpture Park, will exist only in the shadows; and the lights glowing inside the beautiful building that houses the Seattle Asian Art Museum will also be dimmed. The Museum of Flight is even getting in on the action! They will be turning off the lights to the Boeing Red Barn, the Charles Simonyi Space Gallery, Personal Courage Wing and the Pedestrian Bridge. What about you? Please consider participating yourself, among millions of others around the world.

So, what do you do for an hour in the dark, on a Saturday night?

I can’t think of a thing.

Well, okay, if I really put my mind to it, I can come up with a few ideas:

Play Twister. Okay, that one was obvious.
Get all cozy with candles, a fire, a blanket and a glass of wine. And a friend.
Do you remember in art class, you would be blindfolded (no really stay with me here), put your pencil on paper, and then draw an object (hello!) without taking your pencil off the page? Then you would whip off your blindfold and laugh at the silly drawing. Yeah, you could do that. And no blindfold required!
Meditate.
Walk around the neighborhood and notice who has all their lights blazing, casually ignoring that the earth is going to burn up and die unless we do something!!!!
Ring their doorbell and ask them ~~why~~ ~~they are so blatantly insensitive~~ to participate in Earth Hour too.
Go outside and look at the stars.
Remember that scene in the movie Ray where Jamie Foxx, who brilliantly portrayed the blind pianist Ray Charles, was cooking a whole meal in the dark with the lights off?
Create a haunted house for your kids—at your own risk.
Play Spoons. Much harder in the dark, right?
Spoon.
Act out your favorite scenes from Downton Abbey.
Eat an entire pan of brownies. I mean we’re celebrating the beautiful earth, right?

-Elizabeth Detels, Director of Human Resources

This was obviously painted by someone who attended a fun Earth Hour get together.

Banquet Still Life, ca. 1653–55, Abraham van Beyeren, Dutch, ca. 1620/21–1690, oil on canvas, 42 1/8 x 45 1/2 in. (107 x 115.5 cm), Seattle Art Museum, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 61.146, Photo: Eduardo Calderón

SAM Art: A new look at an old painting

Seattle Art Museum on Mar 19 2013

The naked human body was an acceptable subject for artists illustrating myths or, occasionally, biblical stories. In this painting Venus and her lover Adonis enjoy a brief period of happiness before he is killed. Especially popular in the region of Venice, Veronese’s large, richly colored decorations were fashionable throughout Europe.

Members Art History Lecture Series: Curator’s Choice with Chiyo Ishikawa and Nicholas Dorman
Venus and Adonis by Paolo Veronese and Workshop
Wednesday, March 20, 7–8:30 pm
Plestcheeff Auditorium, first floor, SAM downtown

This winter, one of the most imposing paintings in our European collection, Venus and Adonis by Paolo Veronese and Workshop, has been in the exhibition Paolo Veronese: A Master and His Workshop in Renaissance Venice at the Ringling Museum of Art. In preparation for the show, SAM’s Chief Conservator Nicholas Dorman oversaw conservation and technical evaluation of our painting. He and Chiyo Ishikawa, The Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art and Curator of European Painting & Sculpture, will discuss the painting’s history, subject matter, and the intriguing question of its authorship.

Venus and Adonis (pictured prior to conservation treatment), before 1580, Paolo di Gabriele di Piero Caliaro (known as Veronese; Italian, 1528-1588) and workshop, oil on canvas, 88 3/8 x 66 1/4 in., Samuel H. Kress Collection, 61.174, Photo: Paul Macapia. Currently on view at the Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, in Paolo Veronese: A Master and His Workshop in Renaissance Venice, through April 14, 2013.

SAMblog: An extraordinary collection

Seattle Art Museum on Mar 14 2013

Starting in 1962, a New York City couple—a librarian and her husband, a postal service employee—built an unlikely collection of art that included some of the most important names in Minimal and Conceptual art. Passionately devoted to the art of their time, Dorothy and Herbert Vogel built an astounding collection of roughly 4000 artworks. They were avid gallery goers, befriended many artists, and started to champion Minimal and Conceptual art at a time when these art forms were just emerging in New York. The proximity and accessibility of the artists, who had no audience to speak of in the 1960s, paired with an insatiable curiosity and deep appreciation for the most radical ideas, allowed the Vogels to acquire their remarkable collection.

When they decided to gift their collection, their small New York apartment was crammed with art. After the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., accepted some 1000 works from the Vogels as a gift, the collectors and curators decided to create an additional gift: fifty works from their collection would be given to one museum in each of the fifty states of the United States. The Seattle Art Museum is honored to be the recipient in the State of Washington.

Hand Line Reflection Method 5 of 100, 1995, Terry Winters (American, born 1949), ink on paper, 13 x 8 ½ in., The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, a joint initiative of the Trustees of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and the National Gallery of Art, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute for Museum and Library Services, 2008.29.48, © Terry Winters, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, Photo: Elizabeth Mann. On view in the Modern and Contemporary art galleries, third floor, SAM downtown, starting Saturday, 16 March.

SAM Art: An unusual self-portrait

Seattle Art Museum on Mar 6 2013

“He comes from the Pacific Northwest: an exceedingly tall thin figure, with large transfixed, rather alarmed eyes . . . He is shy and self aware to a degree, aloof yet (you suspect) ruthless in his self-determination. . . . In short he is very birdlike: receding, private, mobile, and migratory. . . he has the willful steely quality of a bird-its fierce capacity to survive.”

-Frederick S. Wight, Director of the Art Gallery, University of California at Los Angeles, on meeting Morris Graves, 1963

Morris Graves created this work early in his career, in the same year that he won first prize at the Seattle Art Museum’s Annual Exhibition of Northwest Artists. A very private person, the self-portrait was an unusual subject for Graves. However, in 1932 Graves joined a small group of artists that met periodically for painting sessions. The group members would each create a work in response to a shared theme, such as “still life.” Guy Anderson, another member of this group, remembers Graves painting this work as his response to the theme of “self-portrait.”

Self-portrait, 1933, Morris Graves (American, born Fox Valley, Oregon, 1910; died Loleta, California, 2001), oil on canvas, 25 1/2 x 19 3/4 in., Gift of Florence Weinstein in memory of Max Weinstein, 85.268, © Morris Graves Foundation, Photo: Paul Macapia. Currently on view in the American Modernism galleries, third floor, SAM downtown.

SAM Art: More than just a Spanish family

Seattle Art Museum on Feb 26 2013

Flush with international power and resources from its holdings in Europe, the Americas and Asia, the royal court of Spain was the greatest art collector in the country. Before the seventeenth century, Spanish patrons mostly commissioned art from Italian and Flemish artists; but in the 1600s Spanish artists came into their own. Velázquez, Murillo, Ribera, and Zurbarán created a formidable reputation for earthy naturalism, whether the subject was religious or drawn from daily life.

In this painting, what appears to be an ordinary Spanish family of the seventeenth century is, in fact, Jesus with his parents, the Virgin Mary and Joseph. Religious painters of this time strove to make stories from the Bible real and compelling for their contemporary audiences. Zurbarán, one of Spain’s most distinctive painters, addresses events that followed the birth of Jesus Christ as described in the Gospel of Matthew: Jesus’ father Joseph was warned in a dream that the jealous King Herod was threatening his infant son’s life. Joseph immediately packed up the family and they fled to safety in Egypt. The frontal orientation invites veneration from worshippers who would have been the original audience for this painting.

The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, ca. 1638-40, Francisco de Zurbarán (Spanish, 1598–1664), oil on canvas, 59 1/16 x 62 5/8 in., Partial and promised gift of Barney A. Ebsworth Collection, 2011.36, Photo: Courtesy of Agnew’s Gallery, London. Currently on view in European Masters: The Treasures of Seattle, special exhibition galleries, fourth floor, SAM downtown.

SAM Art: Elles: SAM is ending, but women artists are still here

Seattle Art Museum on Feb 13 2013

Near the center of Australia, out of a station named Utopia, a group of women have painted their way to fame. They are among the leading names in Australian Aboriginal art and many attribute their fluid use of acrylics to years of experience with painting bodies for ceremonies. One of the younger artists is Abie Loy, who began painting at the age of 22, and was mentored by the older generations. Each Utopia woman has developed her own style, but all rely on consistency and repetitive structure. Awelye is composed of rectangles that embody a multitude of minor variations. Loaded brushstrokes define the frameworks, while tiny white dots offset a black background. The artist credits ceremony as a source for inspiration, but one outsider’s reading of the accumulated surface is to see it as a vast array of windows onto another world.

While this is the final week to see Elles: SAM, many works by women artists remain on view at SAM within our permanent collection and special exhibition galleries. Paintings like Awelye can be seen at SAM as a result of a longtime and continuing commitment to great artists, regardless of whether they are men or women

Awelye “Women’s Ceremony”, 2006, Abie Loy Kamerre (Australian Aboriginal, Anmatyerr people, Utopia, Central Desert, Northern Territory, born 1972), acrylic on linen, 40 3/16 x 59 13/16 in., Gift of Margaret Levi and Robert Kaplan in honor of Mimi Gardner Gates, 2009.19, © Abie Loy Kamerre. Currently on view in the Contemporary and Australian Art gallery, third floor, SAM downtown.

SAM Art: An inherited history

Seattle Art Museum on Feb 5 2013

Honoring her Salish heritage, Musqueam artist Susan Point carved red and yellow cedar to create a sculpture that expresses her cultural ancestry and a devotional attitude towards nature. Red cedar has always been considered the “tree of life” for First Peoples, which is the title the artist has also given this work. Valued by the Salish peoples, every part of the cedar tree is utilized to create houses, storage bins, clothing, canoes, mats, baskets, masks, paint brushes, and floats for nets, among other uses. Here, Point carves eight faces connected by root-like forms or waterways that reference a family tree and the importance of inherited histories that unite the Salish people.

Because of her high stature and the demand for her work, Susan Point rarely executes large labor-intensive carvings any longer and has turned to work other media. This piece, created specifically for the museum, is a large-scale carved and painted panel that retains the ethos of ancient Coast Salish forms yet, in the hands of this accomplished artist those forms and the content they carry are vibrantly contemporary. Susan has emerged as one of the most successful and sought-after Northwest Coast Native artists and she has been credited with single-handedly reviving the unique Salish style that has lain dormant for nearly 100 years. She is among only a handful of Native female artists working in the media of woodcarving.

The First People, 2008, Susan Point (Canadian, Musqueam, born 1951), red and yellow cedar, 144 x 89 in., Margaret E. Fuller Purchase Fund, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum, 2008.31, © Susan Point, photo: Susan Cole. Currently on view in the Native American Art galleries, third floor, SAM downtown.

SAM Art: Objects of desire

Seattle Art Museum on Jan 29 2013

The collecting impulse of museum directors, curators, and private collectors—an insatiable desire—are referenced and investigated in Gloria Bornstein’s installation Concupiscence. Created in 2002, for a solo exhibition at SAM, the title of the work expresses strong, sexual desire. In this case, Bornstein used for inspiration the stories and collections of SAM founding director Dr. Richard Fuller, and African art collector Katherine White. Bornstein used various source materials, specifically old taxonomy books from which she gathered images in order to create cast-porcelain objects of sexual organs of various organisms, including earthworms, barnacles, and flatworms. She then placed these anthropomorphic forms in a custom-made case in order to comment on traditional methods of museum display, and in so doing, she tamed and neutralized the physical and sexual presence of the objects.

Gloria Bornstein was born in New York in 1937. She has degrees in art and education, and in psychology. She lives and works in Seattle.

Concupiscence, 2002, Gloria Bornstein (American, born 1937), cast porcelain, paper, wood, plexiglas vitrine and ink-on-paper, Gift of the artist, 2007.108, © Gloria Bornstein. Not currently on view.

SAM Art: A Surreal seat

Seattle Art Museum on Jan 23 2013

A contemporary Surrealist, Louise Bourgeois’ career stretched from the 1940s until 2010. Her lifelong fascination with myth, ritual, and totemic figures had its roots in French Surrealism, which reached a high point between the World Wars. In these Eye Benches, furniture takes the form of giant, observant eyes. Visitors encounter the disembodied eyes, which seem to follow their every movement around the Olympic Sculpture Park’s lower plaza, discovering that the enigmatic sculptural objects play a functional role: providing comfortable outdoor seating.

Louise Bourgeois was born in 1911 in Paris. She entered university in 1932, intending to study mathematics, but turned to art the next year. She studied in art schools as well as apprenticing in artists’ studios in Montparnasse and Montmartre. She emigrated to New York in 1938, where she continued her studies, eventually having her first solo exhibition in 1945. She lived and worked in New York until her death in 2010.

Eye Benches II, 1996-97, Louise Bourgeois (American, born French, 1911-2010), black Zimbabwe granite, 48 x 76 15/16 x 46 1/2 in. each, Gift of the artist, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum, 2005.114.1-2, © Louise Bourgeois, photo: Paul Macapia. Currently on view in the Olympic Sculpture Park.

SAM Art: Stitched, painted, and in-your-face

Seattle Art Museum on Jan 15 2013

Egyptian artist Ghada Amer is best known for works like Black Series: Couleurs Noires, where embroidered female nudes emerge seductively from zones of applied and dripping paint. Not readily apparent at first glance, her canvases draw inspiration from photography: The female forms in her work are drawn from pornography, traced onto an abstractly painted canvas, and then embroidered. She leaves the embroidery threads uncut, securing them to the canvas with gel; these trailing threads add an additional sense of “painterliness” to the image.

Amer’s work is inherently confrontational—not just in displaying to the viewer perhaps disturbing imagery, but playing with the dichotomies of pornography vs. art, abstraction vs. figure, and photography vs. painting.

This painting is installed as part of Elles: SAM – Singular Works by Seminal Women Artists, which remains on view through 17 February.

…

The first Members Art History Lecture of 2013 will take place tomorrow (Wednesday), 16 January, at 7:00pm in the Plestcheeff Auditorium, first floor, SAM downtown.

Barbara Brotherton, Curator of Native American Art, will discuss Together Again: Nuxalk Faces of the Sky with her colleague Jennifer Kramer, Curator of Pacific Northwest Art, Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia.

Black Series: Couleurs Noires, 2000, Ghada Amer (Egyptian, works in America, born 1963), acrylic, embroidery, and gel medium on canvas, 68 x 70 in., Gift of the ContemporaryArtProject, Seattle, 2002.5, © Ghada Amer. Currently on view in Elles: SAM – Singular Works by Seminal Women Artists, Modern and Contemporary art galleries, third floor, SAM downtown, through 17 February.

SAM Art: A human-scale Torso

Seattle Art Museum on Jan 8 2013

Toshiko Takaezu was one of America’s most successful artists using ceramics for sculptural ends. In her career, spanning the late-1940s until the 2010s, she moved beyond the functional pots and bowls traditionally thrown by ceramicists to explore forms, surfaces, and colors on purely aesthetic terms.

SAM’s collection includes thirteen works spanning Takaezu’s long career, including this large, standing sculpture. Strangely familiar to a viewer’s eye, Torso more closely reflects the proportions and scale of the human form than a jar, and is a significant example of Takaezu’s later achievements in clay.

Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Paris closes this Sunday, 13 January. However, Elles: SAM – Singular Works by Seminal Women Artists remains on view until 17 February. SAMart will continue to explore the work of women artists in SAM’s collection until Elles: SAM closes next month.

Torso, 2000, Toshiko Takaezu (American, 1922–2011), ceramic, 57 1/2 x 19 x 19 in., Gift of the artist, 2009.13, © Toshiko Takaezu. Not currently on view.

SAM Art: One last traditional basketmaker

Seattle Art Museum on Dec 18 2012

Considered a wealth item, and often given as a gift to friends or relatives, finely woven baskets like this are rarely associated with a known weaver. This basket, however, comes from the hand of Susan Wawatkin Bedal, the last traditional basket maker of the Sauk-Suiattle tribe from the Darrington, Washington area.

Susan Bedal possessed an intimate knowledge of the gathering and preparation of natural materials from the prairie and forests of the North Cascades, which she crafted into masterful works. Visual balance is achieved through the attention given to the placement and disposition of the designs on the field of the baskets. The accent designs have descriptive names that refer to the natural features of the artist’s world, such as butterfly (inverted triangles), clouds (staggered rows of alternating colors), and snake or trail (ladder step design). Such designs are owned by individuals and families and passed down through the generations.

Due to the holidays, SAMart will be on vacation for the next two weeks. Happy holidays, and a wonderful new year, to all of SAMart’s readers.

Yius (coiled basket), 1900-1940, Susan Wawatkin Bedal (Sauk, 1865-1947), cedar bark, cedar root, alder bark, beargrass, huckleberry, 14 x 14 x 10 in., Gift of Jean Bedal Fish and Edith Bedal, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum, 2005.106, © Susan Wawatkin Bedal, Photo: Paul Macapia. Currently on view in the Native American art galleries, third floor, SAM downtown.

SAM Art: An overlooked Chinese artist

Seattle Art Museum on Dec 11 2012

Named for a 17^th-century Chinese poem, this painting comes from the “Song of Lake Yuan” series. The poem is a lamentation for the good times the author and his peers experienced before the upheaval of regime change. Echoing 17^th-century woodblock illustrations of epic novels, painter Lu Wujiu illustrates the poem’s 26 verses with vivid imagery that dramatizes the sentiment portrayed in each verse.

The daughter of a prominent Chinese figure painter, Lu Wujiu was drawn to abstract painting in her own career. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the late 1950s, where she began to define her style of synthesis between West and East. Her mentor there praised her ability “to see the analogies between traditional Chinese attitudes and the vigour of contemporary western abstract expressionism.”

Lu Wujiu’s work is currently on view at the Seattle Asian Art Museum as part of Elles: SAM—Singular Works by Seminal Women Artists.

Elles-related lecture tomorrow:

Victoria Haven: Portable Monuments
Members Art History Lecture Series: Curator’s Choice in conversation with Catharina Manchanda
Wednesday, December 12, 7–8:30 pm
Plestcheeff Auditorium, SAM downtown

Artist Victoria Haven and Catharina Manchanda, the Jon and Mary Shirley Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art, will discuss ideas relating to the works presented in Haven’s installation in the exhibition Elles: SAM—Singular Works by Seminal Women Artists. Haven utilizes ephemeral objects of personal significance to map her experience and memory to a larger artistic and cultural history that remains grounded in the Pacific Northwest.

The Song of Lake Yuan (one page), 1993-2005, Lu Wujiu (Chinese, lives and works in U.S., born 1918), ink on paper, 23 5/8 x 38 9/16 in., Gift of Wu-Chiu Lu and Shih-Du Sun, 2012.7.2.1, © Lu Wujiu. Currently on view in Where Have They Been? Two Overlooked Chinese Female Artists, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Volunteer Park.

A Glimpse of SAM’s School Tours

Seattle Art Museum on Dec 5 2012

My name is Paige Smith. I work in the School & Educator Programs Department at the Seattle Art Museum. I have interned and worked at SAM for a little over a year now, and in all of my different positions I’ve learned so much about the museum’s role as an educational institution. My current position as the School Tour Greeter has given me the most exposure to how important educators are to the museum and the critical role they play in bringing art and people together. I have a great admiration for educators and a strong personal and professional goal to become an educator, thus the opportunity to work with school tour groups and with SAM’s wonderful Docents seemed not only a great experience for me, but also sounded fun! The School Tour Greeter serves as mainly a liaison between school groups who come for a tour and the Docents who lead the tours. In this position I communicate with Docents about any extra information they may need to know about their school tour group. I also make sure the Teaching Artists are in the art studios and prepared for the school groups that join their tour with an art workshop.

Docents play an essential role as educators in the museum. Observing their strengths in educating all types of groups has been very inspiring. Docents are volunteers who apply to become a touring guide for school, public, and private tours. They endure a lot of training and lead many types of themed tours for all the permanent collection and special exhibition galleries at all three SAM sites ( SAM downtown, The Seattle Asian Art Museum, and Olympic Sculpture Park). I get to witness an incredible exchange between students, docents, and teachers as they prepare for their venture into the art galleries.

As the students and teachers enter the museum they move all in one organic mass. Sometimes entering as one herd, shuffling close together, or sometimes entering more fluidly, spreading out as their minds ponder the new open space they’ve filtered into: the museum. Docents greet them eagerly and the relationship between guide and school group begins. Students of different ages present different kinds of energy and the Docents can interpret and immediately bounce off this energy with much enthusiasm, friendliness, encouragement and leadership. I’ve seen Docents lead all ages of students from little kindergarten tots to angsty high schoolers and they handle them all differently. I had a conversation with docents Karin Roth and Ann Hardy about guiding a group of kindergarten students after their tour. Karin was very excited about how engaged her group was. She said it was very different from her experiences guiding high school students because of how eager these young toddlers were to engage themselves in what they were seeing, whereas teenagers are often more reserved or can be preoccupied with other teen worries or social dynamics. They both enjoy any group type but Karin was exhilarated by how differently they interact with her and how she was able to gear her tour towards their responses.

Docents cater their language, questions, and explanations to the age and the types of group dynamics they observe from the start. The distance the group has come, the type of school they attend, and teacher they come with all influence the dynamic of the group. It is exciting to watch how docents can read the dynamic and then accentuate different aspects of the museum and exhibits to encourage the group’s particular interest and intellect as much as they can.

Docents come from a diverse background of different professions and experience with teaching, but I cannot emphasize enough how devoted each Docent is to bringing art and art history into a personal level of connection for each student. As educators of the museum SAM Docents bring a whole world of knowledge and adventure to the experiences of each individual school group, and every tour is a different adventure!

SAM Art: Abstract and American

Seattle Art Museum on Dec 4 2012

The multiplicity of things which lie in no man’s land just beyond the realm of appearances enchants me.

-Charmion von Wiegand, 1947

Charmion von Wiegand was among a dedicated band of U.S. supporters of the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian. Mondrian spent his final four years (1940-1944) in New York City, and von Wiegand became one of his closest friends. Von Wiegand’s career as a painter followed Mondrian’s arrival in New York in 1940, and she exhibited frequently from 1942 onward. Her best works, dating from the mid- to late-1940s, merges the structure of geometry with a ceaseless flow of organic shapes. Von Wiegand regularly exhibited with the American Abstract Artists group, which formed the core of support for U.S. abstract art before the emergence of the abstract expressionists.

Abstraction, 1945, Charmion von Wiegand (American, 1898-1983), tempera on board, 19 3/4 x 15 in., Gift of Zoe Dusanne, 60.54, © Charmion von Wiegand. Currently on view in Elles: SAM – Singular Works by Seminal Women Artists, Modern and Contemporary art galleries, third floor, SAM downtown.

SAM Art: Maasai Women Artists

Seattle Art Museum on Nov 29 2012

A wedding is the moment for defining feminine beauty in many cultures. Among Maasai women, a bride is given all the ornaments she needs to begin her new life. The art in this case was created by Maasai women from the Merrueshi community of the Kaputiei section of Kenya. Their intent was to demonstrate how a bride’s costume is a personalized collection of beadwork, stories and wishes for the future. Each is composed of cowhide, glass beads, wire and plastic dividers.

One aspect of Maasai aesthetics is immediately evident. Colors-and their order of placement-are carefully controlled, both due to their meaning and to the need for balance in the interaction of opposites. Certain colors are designated as strong or weak and must not be placed side by side. Nothing is meant to be continuous or unbroken, because mixture is a fact of life and needs to be recognized in the patterns.

Over necklace (Ololuaa), Naramat ene Mure (Maasai, Merrueshi community, Kaputiei section, Kenya), leather, glass beads, aluminum dangles, 16 x 6 3/4 x 1/8 in., General Acquisition Fund, 2000.12.11. Currently on view in the African Art galleries, fourth floor, SAM downtown.

SAM Art: Giving thanks

Seattle Art Museum on Nov 21 2012

The Seattle Art Museum gives thanks for the hundreds of women artists whose work we collect and display, including the many talented artists currently included in Elles: Pompidou and Elles: SAM.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

The Seattle Art Museum is closed on Thursday, 22 November, in observance of the Thanksgiving Day holiday. We are open on Friday, 23 November, our normal hours (10:00am – 9:00pm).

Circumvolution, ca. 1943, Helmi Juvonen (American, 1903-1985), tempera on canvas, 24 x 36 in., Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 43.32. Not currently on view.

SAM art: Two opposing worlds

Seattle Art Museum on Nov 16 2012

Dichotomies and oppositions course through the work of Iranian-born artist Shirin Neshat, including her two-channel video installation Tooba. This video, currently on view at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, is shown on two facing screens. The lyrical imagery on each side unfolds at the pace of poetry, despite the fact that there are no words. The film shows a walled garden, the silent hordes that descend upon it, and a woman within it, swallowed by a tree.

Neshat’s work straddles two worlds, and she acknowledges “constantly negotiating between two cultures that are not just different from one another but in complete conflict.” Born in Iran in 1957, the artist moved to the United States to attend university in the late 1970s. When the Iranian Revolution broke out, she remained in the US. Shirin Neshat is perhaps the world’s best-known contemporary Middle Eastern artist, despite the fact that she has lived and worked in the US for decades. Her lived experience between these two cultures gave rise to her “idea of opposites,” the structure upon which her body of work is built.

Tooba (still), 2002, Shirin Neshat (American, born Iran, 1957), 35mm film on DVD and Betacam tapes, running time 12 minutes, Given in honor of Lisa Corrin by Susan and Jeffrey Brotman, Jane and David Davis, Barney A. Ebsworth, Judy and Jeff Greenstein, Lyn and Jerry Grinstein, Richard and Betty Hedreen, Janet Ketcham, Kerry and Linda Killinger Foundation, James and Christina Lockwood, Michael McCafferty, Christine and Assen Nicolov, Faye and Herman Sarkowsky, Jon and Mary Shirley, Rebecca and Alexander Stewart, Bagley and Virginia Wright, Barbara and Charles Wright, Ann P. Wyckoff, 2005.141, Photo: Larry Barns, © Shirin Neshat. Currently on view in conjunction with Elles: SAM – Singular Works by Seminal Women Artists, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Volunteer Park, until 2 December 2012.

SAM Art: Minimal, or maybe not…

Seattle Art Museum on Nov 7 2012

A glimpse at Ellen Gallagher’s paintings can be misleading: Grids of small circles on lined paper create the illusion of Minimalism. Step closer to examine those small circles, however, and hundreds of gleaming eyes and occasional rows of mouths are staring at the viewer. Ellen Gallagher, who has African-American and Irish parents, has loaded the calm surface with reminders of the derogatory huge rolling eyes and exaggerated thick lips seen on white actors performing in blackface as part of American minstrel shows a century ago. The artist uses lined pages from children’s composition books, suggesting the fine line between innocent doodling and harmful caricatures.

Host, 1996, Ellen Gallagher (American, born 1965), oil and graphite on paper mounted to canvas, 69 1/8 x 49 7/8 in., Gift of Richard and Elizabeth Hedreen and the Margaret E. Fuller Purchase Fund, 97.6, © Ellen Gallagher. Currently on view in Elles: SAM – Singular Works by Seminal Women Artists, Modern and Contemporary art galleries, third floor, SAM downtown.

SAM Art: A Cunningham way of looking at the world

Seattle Art Museum on Nov 2 2012

Imogen Cunningham is an artist who is revered for radically altering the traditional still life. Like fellow artists Georgia O’Keeffe, Margaret Bourke-White, Ella McBride, and Lola Alvarez Bravo, Cunningham conceived of and portrayed objects in ways that defied conventional picture making. These artists brought plants and constructions alike up close, reducing them to abstract shapes and patterns. Having liberated the portrayal of things from the mundane act of description, they asserted the role of the artist in selecting forms for visual impact, in altering the viewer’s perception, and transforming familiar objects into mysterious works of art.

Cunningham’s style changed throughout her career—her early pictorialist work developed into a mature, modernist aesthetic. Inspired by surrealism, she enjoyed manipulating images both in the camera and the darkroom. The world was a feast for her eyes, and Cunningham captured this vision with curiosity and enduring vitality that continues to resonate today.

Mendocino Motif, 1965, Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976), gelatin silver print, 11 1/2 x 9 1/2 in., Gift of John H. Hauberg, 89.66, © (1965), 2009 Imogen Cunningham Trust. Currently on view in the Modern American art galleries, third floor, SAM downtown, as part of Elles: SAM.

SAM Art: Modern Masters

Seattle Art Museum on Oct 23 2012

Three of SAM’s modern and contemporary art galleries are currently dedicated to an installation titled Modern Masters, a look at the work of American heavyweights Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner and Helen Frankenthaler. All three developed their work in the context and aftermath of Abstract Expressionism. Celebratory and ironic, “modern masters,” a popular label for the male painters of that generation, bestows this much-deserved designation upon these visionary women artists in recognition of their hard-fought accomplishments in what was a thoroughly male-defined domain.

Drawn from SAM’s own collection, as well as local private collections, Modern Masters surveys the bold, abstract, gestural production of Joan Mitchell (pictured above); the collage-inflected mid-career paintings of Lee Krasner; and the luminously stained canvases of Helen Frankenthaler. While not a retrospective, this installation provides visitors to SAM a fresh glimpse at the rigor and range of mid-century abstraction.

Installation view of “Modern Masters,” part of “Elles: SAM—Singular Works by Seminal Women Artists,” Modern and Contemporary art galleries, third floor, SAM downtown, on view through 17 February 2013.

SAM Art: Tiger Lily

Seattle Art Museum on Oct 16 2012

While Elles has focused our attention on female artists, works by women have been on view in SAM’s galleries all along, sometimes in unexpected places. Tiger Lily is just one example.

According to Patti Warashina, Tiger Lily’s genesis was rooted in memories of her grandmother. “’At the time it was an interest in religious objects used in society. I used the format of the alter to emphasize personal moments which I had been thinking about,” said the artist in 1992.

Shaping humble clay into transcendent forms fit for the divine is a tradition as old as ceramics themselves. Drawing inspiration from the ancient vernacular of forms and techniques, contemporary artists work with clay to create sculpture that, to our eyes, is simultaneously deeply familiar and startlingly fresh. Central to all of the ancient cultures represented in the Ancient Mediterranean and Islamic art galleries, altars and shrines find their contemporary reflection in Tiger Lily. At the height of the Feminist Movement in the 1970s, Warashina created altars such as this, offerings of feminine archetypes and stereotypes for consideration.

Tiger Lily, 1976, Patti Warashina (American, born 1940), low-fire ceramic with acrylic, 24 x 15 7/8 x 13 1/4 in., Gift of the artist, 89.78, © Patti Warashina. Currently on view in the Ancient Mediterranean and Islamic art galleries, fourth floor, SAM downtown.

SAM Art: Victoria Haven

Seattle Art Museum on Oct 9 2012

Seattle-based artist Victoria Haven creates work that furthers the discussion of how the language of abstraction can express personal experience. Recently, she has delved into her memories of the Pacific Northwest and her connection to it. In Northwest Field Recording – WA (12” B side), Haven created a drawing in a format that corresponds to the size and shape of a vinyl record – the pattern of the words suggests the circular grooves on an LP. In addition to a reference to music, Haven described the form of this drawing (one of a pair) as being reminiscent of the rings on a tree indicating a life span.

Although steeped in a minimalist sensibility, found objects of a certain kind—ephemera, like a mixed tape or the black double diamond found on trail maps—are starting points for Haven’s most recent body of work, Victoria Haven: Proposed Land Use Action, which is now installed as part of Elles: SAM—Singular Works by Seminal Women Artists.

Northwest Field Recording – WA (12″/B side), 2010, Victoria Haven (American, born 1964), ink on paper, 18 1/2 x 18 in., Gift of Rebecca and Alexander Stewart and an anonymous donor, 2011.9.1, Photo: Richard Nicol, © Victoria Haven. Not currently on view. Victoria Haven: Proposed Land Use Action, an exhibition of new work by the artist, is on view until February 2013, Modern and Contemporary art galleries, third floor, SAM downtown.

SAM Art 50+: The World’s Fair + SAM, final installment

Seattle Art Museum on Oct 2 2012

One week from now, women take over SAM, as the city of Seattle celebrates women artists. The exhibitions Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Paris and Elles: SAM—Singular Works by Seminal Women Artists debut to the public on 11 October, but this is only the most recent expression of the museum’s—and city’s—commitment to women artists.

In 1962, in the Fine Arts Pavilion of the World’s Fair, women were nearly invisible. In Masterpieces of Art, Art Since 1950: American and Art Since 1950: International, of the 199 European and American artists represented, only seven were women. The story was entirely different in Northwest Art Today – Adventures in Art. In this show of regional artists, ten out of 86 artists were women. One of these women was Kathleen Gemberling Adkison (Kathleen Gemberling in 1962).

A Spokane artist with wide-ranging interests, Gemberling Adkison was emblematic of the Northwest arts scene in the early 1960s. Known for her dreamy snippets of landscape, as if seen through our famous mist of rain, she was originally a student of Mark Tobey’s. Living in an area more accepting of women artists was a boon for Gemberling Adkison’s career. She, and her female peers, did not have to struggle in obscurity like many women artists in New York and other cities—in Seattle, women were fully accepted participants in the arts scene.

Her painting included in Northwest Art Today was a departure from her early work, and this increase in attention prompted her to an equal increase in ambition. Like Seattle itself, Kathleen Gemberling Adkison used the World’s Fair to process new styles, artists and philosophies.

Gemberling Adkison visited the Fair regularly, relishing her first in-person exposure to work by Hans Hofmann, Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Francis, and others. Her work from 1962 onward was visibly informed by the aesthetics, process and visual language of abstract expressionism— the exposure provided by the World’s Fair laid a path to a new style for this artist, who was liberated from her earlier, literal interpretations of nature. Her mature, abstract canvases (such as Verdant Winter) provide layers of reference, from moss and granite, to Hofmann and Frankenthaler.

The World’s Fair left the city of Seattle, its artists and its arts institutions forever changed. It heralded a new era in the arts and culture of this city. The Seattle Art Museum is proud to have taken part in the Fair, and is pleased to have used SAMart this past month to present a look back (and forward).

Verdant Winter, 1969, Kathleen Gemberling Adkison (American, 1920 – 2010), oil on canvas, 46 1/16 x 40 3/16 in., Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 69.74, © Kathleen Adkison. Currently viewable online: www.seattleartmuseum.org/emuseum.

SAM Art 50+: The World’s Fair + SAM, part IV

Seattle Art Museum on Sep 25 2012

The “Century 21” World’s Fair introduced a host of innovations to the city of Seattle, not least of which was the avant-garde of artistic practice. Art Since 1950 – American and International, a pair of the exhibitions highlighted in the Fine Arts Pavilion, introduced the newest of the new to Seattle.

Avant-garde, forward-thinking, and—in particular—abstract art had long fought an uphill battle in Seattle. Public reaction to Mark Tobey’s Modal Tide, when it won the purchase prize of the 1940 Annual Exhibition of Northwest Artists, was immediate and outraged. Much had changed over the ensuing two decades, but Art Since 1950 was still able to shock the general public.

The exhibition included such provocative artists as Alberto Burri, Hans Hofmann, Robert Rauschenberg, as well as the brash face of New York abstraction, Willem de Kooning. Visionary Seattle arts patron Virginia Wright wryly noted in 2006, that the World’s Fair “was the first time Seattle saw a de Kooning.” The surface a stormy sea, with peaks and streaks of color building into the form of a woman, the painting lent by the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City was certainly Seattle’s introduction to the artist’s classic “Woman” series. It was not until 1965 that SAM acquired its first de Kooning, a gift of contemporary collector Anne Gerber; in 1976, the museum received its own “Woman,” a gift of Virginia Wright and her husband Bagley.