Official behind-the-scenes blog of the Dallas Museum of Art
For today’s Friday photo post, I am focusing on a special subject- the Alamo. As an avid lover of Texas history, I traveled to San Antonio over the weekend to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo. While inside the famous shrine, I viewed a painting of David Crockett, which made me think of related works of art in the DMA’s Collection. I included these below along with pictures of my travels. I hope you enjoy them!
![](https://i0.wp.com/blog.dma.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/1960_185.jpg?fit=960%2C723&ssl=1 "Robert Jenkins Onderdonk, Sketch for "Fall of the Alamo," c. 1901, Gift of Eleanor Onderdonk, 1960.185")
Amy Wolf
Coordinator of Gallery Teaching
This just in – today’s weather is going to be cloudy with a chance of . . . art?! When we think about visiting an art museum with our families, we may not think about the weather (except museums often have what feels like arctic air flowing through the galleries to keep the art “comfortable” – so bring a sweater!). We have some exciting plans for family fun on the horizon, and there is a 100% chance of WFAA’s meteorologist Greg Fields in the forecast!
Don’t miss our free WFAA Family First Day on Saturday, March 12, that will kick off a week-long fiesta of fun family-friendly activities for spring break.
Join us in the galleries as Greg Fields forecasts the weather in works of art. You will even have the chance to search for rough spots, popping storms, and gray skies in paintings to create a weather forecast of your own.
One work of art we think may be on Greg’s radar is Claude-Joseph Vernet’s painting Mountain Landscape with Approaching Storm, on view in the European Galleries. Skirt alert! Definitely umbrella weather – the atmosphere in this landscape is overcast, with strong whipping winds coming in from the west. Place your bets, because it looks like a drencher. Mother Nature is on the war path! The figures in this scene look like they are facing a giant blow dryer! Look closely as they scurry for cover before it begins to rain cats and dogs. Talk about atmospheric indigestion!
Claude-Joseph Vernet, Mountain Landscape with Approaching Storm, 1775
Greg may forecast flash flood warnings, wind advisories, or even a tornado watch! Visitors will be invited to make a sound symphony of the weather in this scene, pose like the people fleeing for cover, and talk about their own scary storm experiences. It will be a rip-roaring good time!
Extend your Museum fun throughout the week of spring break. From March 13 through March 18 at 5:00 p.m., the DMA is offering $5 admission and $5 parking. Check out the spring break schedule on our website for more information.
Amanda Blake is the Manager of Family Experiences and Access Programs at the Dallas Museum of Art
Over the past few days, I have been thinking about the ways we communicate through words and images. In grade school, we are taught to look for contextual clues to determine the meaning of unknown words. We make the same application when we look at images that are both familiar and unfamiliar to us. Images are all around us – in books, magazines, newspapers, advertisements, and museums, just to name a few.
To make sense of what we see, we often create events in our minds about what we think the image is about. For example, a work of art may suggest a story to us – the work could show the beginning, middle, or end of a story. Some artworks may be more narrative than others. Take a look at the following images by artists Charlie White and Gregory Crewdson.
In the photograph Untitled (boy with hand in drain), Gregory Crewdson encourages us to look closely at the scene of a young man reaching down the drain into a sinister-looking space below. Using a sound stage or working on location, Crewdson directs each photograph as if it were a feature-length film, placing his models exactly where he wants them. Everything in the photograph has a specific purpose from the Scope mouthwash on the sink to the soap in the shower to the light from the window.
In Inland Empire, Charlie White draws our attention to the lower left side of the photograph where a woman wields an iron pipe at a hideous monster. Although the scene appears as if it is from a science fiction movie, it seems strangely familiar, like an urban American landscape that we have encountered at some point during our lifetime. This computer-assisted photograph demonstrates the influence of special effects on the technique and process of photography and the motion picture industry.
The stage is set and ready for us to complete the stories. What do you think happens next in either Untitled (boy with hand in drain) or Inland Empire? Use all of the contextual clues in the photographs to aid in creating a new narrative.
To explore more photographs in the Museum’s collection, go to Picture This: 20th and 21st Century Photographs.
Until next time….
Jenny Marvel
Manager of Programs and Resources for Teachers
Artworks featured:
Gregory Crewdson (American, born 1962), Untitled, 2001-2002 Digital C-print, The Rachofsky Collection and the Dallas Museum of Art: DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund, 2002.45
Charlie White (American, b. 1972), The Inland Empire, 1999 Light jet chromogenic print mounted on Plexiglas, Dallas Museum of Art, Mary Margaret Munson Wilcox Fund, 1999.180
Nightlife in Dallas has a touch of jazz on Thursday nights. Our weekly event, Thursday Night Live, features an exciting vibe with great Dallas jazz bands, exquisite art, and thoughtful conversations. In this video, some of our most loyal fans describe what makes Thursday nights so special in the Dallas Arts District, including live jazz, Artist Encounters, and free student admission.
Every Thursday Night Live runs from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. (unless otherwise noted). Please leave a comment and tell us about your Thursday Night Live experiences.
What if the goal in looking at an artwork during a gallery experience wasn’t to learn everything about the object, or to arrive at “right ideas” about its meaning?
Interpretive Play, one of my favorite models of gallery teaching, is based on this idea. During an Interpretive Play experience, groups of visitors are guided by educators to look closely and make observations, “playing” with various possible interpretations and ideas about the artwork. Educators summarize, repeat, and connect visitor observations, weaving information into the conversation only as it is relevant to the group’s responses. The goal of the experience is to provide an opportunity for visitors to look, think, and wonder together, coming to a shared and unique understanding of the artwork.
Two of our wonderful interns, Jackie Lincoln, McDermott Education Intern for Family Experiences, and Haley Berkman, McDermott Curatorial Intern for Contemporary Art, led a gallery talk last Wednesday in the current Re-Seeing the Contemporary: Selected from the Collection based in Interpretive Play. They had a large group of participants and facilitated some meaty, dynamic conversations. Jackie, a frequent blogger on the We Art Family! The DMA Family blog has graciously agreed to share her insights about the gallery talk with us.
See Jackie’s comments below the slideshow of gallery photos and featured artworks.
Haley and I are both planners by nature, so we spent a couple of weeks preparing for our gallery talk. We tried to prepare for all scenarios, leaving nothing up to chance.
We started our discussion with the painting Portrait and a Dream by Jackson Pollock, thinking that visitors might feel more comfortable discussing a work by an artist who might be more familiar to them. It was about two minutes into this discussion that I realized that the content of the conversation was largely out of mine and Haley’s control, and that it was up to the visitors to determine the course of the talk. It was a frightening moment for me, acknowledging that something that we spent so much time preparing for was in the hands of other people, but then, I took a deep breath and started to listen to what visitors were saying about the works of art. Many of the participants made observations about the works that Haley and I had not noticed before or brought up ideas or associations that we would have come up with on our own. I found that by listening to others’ ideas, I was gaining greater insight into the works, and I hope that the participants felt the same way.
Leading a group through an interpretive play exercise was much harder than I thought it was going to be, but it was also very rewarding. It was challenging guiding people through a new kind of gallery experience—an experience where they are actively participating instead of passively receiving information. Creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing their observations and then finding a way to connect those (sometimes conflicting) observations is not an easy task for the facilitator. It was also challenging deciding when was the appropriate time to step away from a work or move on to a new topic or idea. However, I feel like with practice that many of these issues could be ameliorated.
Overall, this act should enhance their experience with a work of art and will hopefully make it more meaningful to them. It was interesting and inspiring to me that a single piece of artwork can mean so many different things to so many people, and I definitely plan on incorporating this technique into more of my classes in the future!
Jackie Lincoln
McDermott Intern for Family Experiences
Amy Copeland
Coordinator of Go van Gogh Outreach
On Saturday we opened the Young Masters exhibition in our main Concourse. The exhibition features forty-eight selected works created by Advanced Placement® Studio Art, Art History, and Music Theory students from thirteen Dallas-area high schools participating in the AP Fine Arts Incentive Program. In a departure from the traditional studio art exhibition featuring original 2D and 3D works of art, this year the exhibition includes original essays written by AP Art History students in response to works in the DMA’s collections, as well as original four-minute compositions by AP Music Theory students. Here are a few images from last week’s installation:
Photography by Adam Gingrich, Dallas Museum of Art Marketing Assistant
As educators, we know you all are always looking for fantastic resources to benefit both you and your students in and outside the classroom. However, these resources can be hard to come by, especially if you don’t know where to look.
So, we are beginning a series on Educator Resources to highlight some of the materials and opportunities available to you and your students. This month, we will begin by talking about various online resources available through the Museum and accessible on our main web site.
Under the “Educators” tab of the main website, select “Teaching Resources” and then “Teaching Materials.” This portion of our website offers over thirty FREE downloadable “packets” of information, organized by theme, age level, or collection. Some examples include Silver in America, A Looking Journey (4th grade), and Arts of the Americas. These packets include introductory information, images of art objects, and classroom activities, along with bibliographies and printable materials.
This portion of our online offerings is currently in a period of transition. Through an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant, to be discussed here later this month by Nicole, the materials are being revamped to better suit teacher needs. As we begin to add new and updated materials, the original materials and packets will still be online for your use.
Another fantastic resource to be found on the Museum web site are the Collections Online or Search Collections features. Several of our staff are working tirelessly to present the over 20,000 objects within the DMA collection to online audiences. Currently, over 6,300 works have been added to the online database and are searchable through the website. When viewing these objects online, users have access to images, basic object information, and notes from the curators. Objects can be sorted by collection area (i.e. African, Asian, etc.), artist, and object name. Users can also create a FREE eMuseum account to group and save images in customizable packets.
3. DMA TV
Finally from the main website, you can access DMA TV. This resource includes both videos and podcasts created by the Museum, ranging from interviews with curators and artists (i.e. this video interview with painter Luc Tuymans) to recordings of past lectures (i.e. Yale University Anthropology Professor, Michael D. Coe’s presentation: The True History of Chocolate).
We hope that you will take the time to explore the many wonderful online resources the DMA has to offer and find ways to incorporate them into your lesson preparation or classroom teaching. Don’t forget to check back in the coming months for posts about other educator resources, including online resources from other institutions, area adult learning opportunities, and local and national grants.
If you have any additional tips for your fellow educators, please leave a comment below!
Ashley Bruckbauer
McDermott Intern for Teaching Programs and Resources
Are you ready for a picnic, fireworks, and to “remember the Alamo”? It’s time to celebrate Texas Independence Day!
One hundred and seventy-five years ago, on March 2, 1836, Texas declared its independence from Mexico when Sam Houston and fifty-seven other men formed the Republic of Texas by signing the Texas Declaration of Independence. The Lone Star State’s triumphant struggle for independence ended a few days later at the siege of the Alamo. Among the approximately 250 brave men who died there were William R. Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett.
A sketch of this legendary battle by Robert Jenkins Onderdonk (father of the Texas impressionist painter Julian Onderdonk) is part of the DMA’s collections. This preliminary drawing depicts Crockett in the center wearing his trademark coonskin cap. He swings a flintlock overhead, about to club advancing Mexicans who have broken through the building’s south gate.
Robert Jenkins Onderdonk, American 1852-1917, "Sketch for 'Fall of the Alamo,'" , c. 1901, Oil and pencil on paper board, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Eleanor Onderdonk, 1960.185
Davy Crockett was a celebrated 19th-century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and politician. He moved from his native Tennessee to serve in the Texas revolution and died at the Battle of the Alamo. A notable work in the DMA’s collections is William Henry Huddle’s portrait of the courageous young hero who made the ultimate sacrifice for the young Texas Republic. Best known for painting scenes from the Texas war of independence, Huddle also completed a series of portraits of Texas governors. In the DMA’s painting, Huddle depicts the hero wearing his hunting clothes with his trusty rifle by his side. Although historians debate many of the details surrounding Crockett’s death, they all agree that he died on March 6, 1836, on the last day of the siege of the Alamo.
William Henry Huddle, American, 1847-1892, "Davy Crockett," 1889, Oil on masonite, Dallas Museum of Art, The Karl and Esther Hoblitzelle Collection, gift of the Hoblitzelle Foundation, 1987.47
The DMA owns some lovely images of this treasured building. One by Plano, Texas, artist Frank Klepper is quite different from Onderdonk’s combative scene. By depicting the building on a tranquil, starry night, Klepper turns the battleground into a hallowed shrine that is the pride of every Texan.
Frank Klepper, American, 1890-1952, "The Alamo," early 1930s, Oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the History Club, 1933.7
Martha MacLeod is the European and American Art Curatorial Administrative Assistant at the Dallas Museum of Art.
Romare Bearden, Soul Three, 1968
Dallas Museum of Art, General Acquisitions Fund and Roberta Coke Camp Fund
Dimensions: Framed dimensions: 57 x 69 x 3 in. (144.78 cm x 1 m 75.26 cm x 7.62 cm) Image dimensions: 44 x 55 1/2 in. (111.76 x 140.97 cm)
Medium: Paper and fabric collage on board
Although we’re closed on Mondays, yesterday the Barrel Vault was all lit up. That morning we hosted two special guests from The Richard Diebenkorn Foundation. The artist’s son-in-law, Richard Grant, who is also the foundation’s Executive Director, was here with a colleague to photograph our Ocean Park No. 29 for the Diebenkorn catalogue raisonné. This magnificent ab ex work, a highlight of the DMA’s collection, is now on view in our Re-Seeing the Contemporary exhibition.
