Posts Tagged 'DMA'



DMA’s Cinderella Inspires New Show

In honor of Thomas Sully’s birthday on June 19, we sat down with William Keyse Rudolph, the DMA’s former Associate Curator of American Art. Now the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Dudley J. Godfrey, Jr. Curator of American Art and Decorative Arts, William is currently organizing a retrospective exhibition of the artist. Sully (1783–1872) was born into a theatrical family in England but made a career in America, capturing in paint many of the leading actors and actresses of the time. The exhibition will feature many of these portraits as well as his “fancy pictures”–paintings made for mass appeal, with literary, artistic, and/or imaginary subjects. While at the DMA, William acquired Cinderella at the Kitchen Fire for the collection; the painting will be featured in the traveling exhibition and accompanying catalogue.

Thomas Sully, Cinderella at the Kitchen Fire, 1843, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the Pauline Allen Gill Foundation

Thomas Sully, Cinderella at the Kitchen Fire, 1843, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the Pauline Allen Gill Foundation

1. You were quoted in Art and Antiques magazine as saying that the DMA’s Cinderella at the Kitchen Fire took your breath away the first time you saw it. Why is this? Why do you consider this work Sully’s “finest fancy picture”?

For one thing, the picture is bigger than you expect. It’s nearly four feet by five feet. It was hanging on the wall of an art dealer’s office, surrounded by books, clutter, papers–and it just jumped out at me, even with all that distraction. It’s a beautifully painted, delicate picture, full of all sorts of grays and pinks that never reproduce well, but that are knock-out in person. And to be honest, it has this great big wonderful orange and white cat frolicking with Cinderella almost right at front and center. At that time, I had an orange and white cat, so the die was cast. I had to love it! And to be fair, former DMA director Jack Lane’s first words upon seeing an image of the painting were “Look at that cat!” He’s a cat person, too. We were also very fortunate that Mrs. Pauline Gill Sullivan, who had been a great benefactor of the DMA, saw the painting when we brought it to the Museum on approval and very graciously agreed to fund its acquisition. Besides having her own fine collection of European and American art, Mrs. Sullivan had a wonderful track record of making acquisitions available to the Museum, such as the commanding 18th-century portrait by Ralph Earl and a really dreamy late 19th-century Frank Duveneck painting of a woman in a red hat, so I was grateful that she responded so well to a big fairytale scene, which was out of her comfort zone in terms of the artist, size, and subject matter.

2. Did you have an interest in Sully and his paintings prior to this acquisition?

Yes. I had lived, worked, and gone to graduate school in Philadelphia for ten years before coming to the DMA, so I was well aware of Sully. He is so closely linked with the city of Philadelphia, where he worked for about sixty years, that it is almost impossible to spend time in Philly and not run into his work in virtually every cultural institution, from museums to libraries and hospitals.

3. How does it make you feel knowing that a key acquisition you made while working at the DMA will now be featured in Milwaukee’s exhibition and catalogue? Was it difficult to leave Cinderella behind?

I am, of course, thrilled! Cinderella at the Kitchen Fire actually gave birth to the show. After I acquired the work, my colleague Carol Eaton Soltis (a curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art) and I began to talk about why this work was so interesting, which led to us proposing a show at the DMA that examined Sully’s total career: portraits as well as fancy pictures like this one. That show, which we began working on in 2005, was originally scheduled for 2009-2010 but ultimately didn’t happen due to timing and other issues. So we are really happy that years later the idea for the show was able to travel with me to Milwaukee and can now finally be seen here and then at the San Antonio Museum of Art. And yes, it was very difficult to leave Cinderella behind. You never, ever forget your first acquisition, and she was mine. I have missed her every day since I left the DMA, and I’m ridiculously excited to have her back with me for a brief time. If you ask gallery attendants at the DMA who remember me, they will tell you I used to go talk to her in the galleries. So my team here has been warned about that! I will probably burst into tears when she comes out of her crate and I see her again.

4. Since Sully also specialized in portraiture, is there any evidence that the figure of Cinderella was based on a real person?

Carol Soltis and I are convinced that the model for Sully was his daughter Rosalie, who posed for many of his works, several of which will also be in the show. She was a very talented painter herself, who died young.

5. Cinderella was painted when Sully was 60 years old. In your opinion, did it bring him the success and attention he hoped for in his later years? Did it help him attract new clients?

Yes and no. Sully hoped to sell the painting much faster than he did. He exhibited it several times in the Northeast and it was made into an engraving, but it took a few years to actually sell to a collector. One of the fascinating stories of this exhibition is how the fancy pictures like Cinderella functioned for Sully as a way to try to counteract the effects of economic crises on the portraiture market. Works like Cinderella were attempts to keep himself in front of the public, which he hoped would both result in sales of the subject pictures and remind clients that he could still turn it on when he wanted to.

6. A later version of Cinderella was (at least at one time) in the collection of Thomas Sully, Jr., of Naples, Florida. Is he a descendant of the painter? Did you ever track down this painting and will it be part of the exhibition and/or catalogue?

He is a descendant. I’ve seen an old reproduction of this picture, and I actually suspect it was the work of one of Sully’s grown children, whom he trained as artists. For that reason, I’ve never really worried about tracing it, as the DMA has the best one. What I’d be curious to see someday is another version of Cinderella done later that apparently shows her with the fairy godmother, but that one is completely obscure and only listed in Sully’s register. If anyone knows where it is, I would love to see it!

7. Do you know yet which works in the exhibition will be installed near the DMA’s Cinderella?

I don’t know exactly where the painting will go in the gallery, but it will be part of a section devoted to Sully’s fancy pictures. So she will live near an amazing picture of Little Nell Asleep in the Curiosity Shop from the Free Library of Philadelphia, which is based on Charles Dickens; and a gigantic, dramatic painting based on a scene from the early American novel The Pilot by James Fenimore Cooper that we’re borrowing from the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama. All three of them will be stunning together, and all were painted around the same time.

Thomas Sully: Painted Performance will be on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum October 11, 2013-January 5, 2014, and then at the San Antonio Museum of Art February 7-May 11, 2014. I hope some of the DMA’s visitors who love this painting will come see the show in one of these places to help celebrate this important painter and this really beautiful picture that the DMA family has been so quick to adopt as a favorite. And thank you to Sue Canterbury, Maxwell L.  Anderson, and all the DMA family for making her available for loan.

Reagan Duplisea is the Associate Registrar, Exhibitions at the DMA.

Off the Walls: Erminia and the Shepherds

The DMA’s galleries house art from around the world, and each work has a story. Olivier Meslay, the Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs and Barbara Thomas Lemmon Curator of European Art at the Dallas Museum of Art, shares insight about the recent acquisition Erminia and the Shepherds, by Guillaume Guillon Lethière. After you learn about the artist and the history of the painting, visit the work on Level 2 for free!

Swelling Seas

Not for the faint of heart, Neil Gaiman’s forthcoming novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, is wondrous, imaginative, and, at times, deeply scary. We found some frightening and powerful images of the sea in our collection that we thought were appropriate for Gaiman’s upcoming DMA Arts & Letters Live event on June 24, 2013, at the Majestic Theatre. Gaiman has announced that this will be his final U.S. tour, and as of today there are fewer than 100 tickets left to his talk and book signing! Visit the DMA’s website for more information and to buy tickets.

Adolf Hiremy-Hirschl, Seaside Cemetery (Seefriedhof), 1897, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of J.E.R. Chilton

Adolf Hiremy-Hirschl, Seaside Cemetery, 1897, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of J.E.R. Chilton

Gerhard Richter, Kunstverein, Richard Bacht, Margreff, Sea (Meer), 1972, yellow, red, blue, and black offset print on white lightweight cardboard, cellophaned and fixed on white lightweight cardboard, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art League Fund, Roberta Coke Camp Fund, General Acquisitions Fund, DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund, and the Contemporary Art Fund: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Vernon E. Faulconer, Mr. and Mrs. Bryant M. Hanley, Jr., Marguerite and Robert K. Hoffman, Howard E. Rachofsky, Deedie and Rusty Rose, Gayle and Paul Stoffel, and two anonymous donors

Gerhard Richter, Kunstverein, Richard Bacht, Margreff, Sea, 1972, yellow, red, blue, and black offset print on white lightweight cardboard, cellophaned and fixed on white lightweight cardboard, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art League Fund, Roberta Coke Camp Fund, General Acquisitions Fund, DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund, and the Contemporary Art Fund: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Vernon E. Faulconer, Mr. and Mrs. Bryant M. Hanley, Jr., Marguerite and Robert K. Hoffman, Howard E. Rachofsky, Deedie and Rusty Rose, Gayle and Paul Stoffel, and two anonymous donors

Gustave Courbet, The Wave, c. 1869-1870, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of H.J. Rudick in memory of Arthur L. Kramer

Gustave Courbet, The Wave, c. 1869-70, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of H.J. Rudick in memory of Arthur L. Kramer

Hayley Dyer is the Audience Relations Coordinator for Programming and Education at the DMA.

Open Office: Decorative Arts and Design

Kevin W. Tucker is the Museum’s Margot B. Perot Curator of Decorative Arts and Design. He joined the Museum in the summer of 2003 and has curated acclaimed exhibitions such as Gustav Stickley and the American Arts & Crafts Movement and The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk. Take a peek inside Kevin’s DMA office:

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Just One (Last) Look

Cindy Sherman’s works are not self-portraits. Despite the fact that all her images feature one model, one photographer, and one make-up artist—all of whom are the artist herself—Sherman’s work constantly denies us access to the “real” Cindy Sherman. According to Gabriel Ritter, the DMA’s Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, “for the most part, Sherman’s works are not introspective images that yield insight into the artist’s psyche. Instead, they are carefully constructed portraits that foreground the plasticity of identity and photography itself.”

Cindy Sherman is the artist who hides in plain sight.

Following is an excerpt from “Cindy Sherman” by Andy Grundberg in Art in America, July 18, 2012:
Of course, Sherman is in her photographs, literally, or at least in the vast majority of them, but the theme of her work is often said to be one of absence: what we see is not Sherman but a repertoire of roles, each reflecting a culturally determined possibility of female identity. This is essentially what has made her a poster child for a coterie of postmodernism’s theory-driven critics.

Yet the emptying out of Sherman as an individual within her work strikes me as misguided and, given the development charted in this emotionally powerful exhibition, just plain wrong…. It has long been apparent…that Sherman’s impetus in making new pictures stems in large part from her reaction to the critical reception of the last batch, her urge to avoid being typecast both as an artist and as a woman.

The acclaimed nationally touring exhibition closes this weekend at the DMA. See the many guises of  Cindy Sherman through Sunday, June 9. Below are a few images from the exhibition, from installation through today.

Jeffrey Grove is the Senior Curator of Special Projects and Research at the DMA.

Two Nights in Greece

On June 26 and 27, I will offer a two-session course on the themes raised by our current exhibition The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece: Masterworks from the British Museum.

Bronze statuette of Zeus Roman period, first–second century AD, said to be from Hungary  9 5/16 x 4 5/16 x 4 3/4 in.  GR 1865,0103.36 (Bronze 909) © The Trustees of the British Museum (2013). All rights reserved.

Bronze statuette of Zeus
Roman period, first–second century AD, said to be from Hungary,
© The Trustees of the British Museum (2013). All rights reserved.

Objects from Greek and Roman antiquity can be challenging to decipher. What the classical world took for granted is no longer part of our language, either spoken or visual. The polytheistic religious framework that defined daily existence seems alien to a modern Western observer, for whom the myths of ancient Greece are complex, overlapping, and in many cases hard to understand.

Over the course of two evenings, I hope to make these artworks of some two millennia ago feel as accessible as possible to a modern viewer, and to share observations from a lifetime of handling and studying classical antiquities.

Black-figure neck amphora, Greek, 520–510 BC, from Vulci, Italy, GR 1836,0224.106 (Vase B224), © The Trustees of the British Museum (2013). All rights reserved.

Black-figure neck amphora, Greek, 520–510 BC, from Vulci, Italy, © The Trustees of the British Museum (2013). All rights reserved.

We’ll tackle the objects in the exhibition by medium, to give insight into the creative choices made by artisans working in gold, silver, bronze, marble, and terracotta, and make our way through the stylistic transitions of the Geometric through the Hellenistic periods.

By the end of these two nights, I hope to have given you what you need to take in not only the antiquities in the DMA’s galleries but also any others you may encounter in the future.

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Visit the DMA’s website for additional information on An Illustrated Course: The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece and to register for the two-night event. DMA Friends have the opportunity to attend the course for free; earn 6,500 points and redeem that credit for the Illustrated Course reward.

Maxwell L. Anderson is The Eugene McDermott Director at the DMA.

DMA Athletes in Training

One of my favorite parts of my job is that I get to spend one morning every month talking with our fantastic Gallery Attendants about works in the collection. So far, we have discussed European art, shared Personal Responses to works in the collection, written Facebook profiles for photos in the Cindy Sherman exhibition, and compared three vastly different works in our American collection. Last week, we spent time in The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece: Masterworks from the British Museum.

After looking at the discus thrower, the Gallery Attendants were asked to divide into teams of two. Each team had to select a sport and strike a pose that epitomizes an athlete participating in that sport. The rest of us had to guess which sporting event they were re-creating. Their poses were creative, clever, and funny, and we couldn’t resist sharing them with you!

Shannon Karol is the Manager of Docent and Teacher Programs at the DMA.

Hello, Summer!

Memorial Day marks the beginning of summer. Enjoy a fun, free (and cool) summer at the DMA with free general admission every day during Museum hours and free activities every week. Check the DMA’s website in the coming weeks for details!

Nic Nicosia, Vacation, 1986, cibachrome photograph, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Meisel Photochrome Corporation

Nic Nicosia, Vacation, 1986, Cibachrome photograph, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Meisel Photochrome Corporation

DallasSITES from a Dallas Transplant

How do you navigate your way in a new city’s art community? That became my challenge when I moved from Philadelphia to Dallas in September 2012 to become the new McDermott Curatorial Intern for Contemporary Art. Of course, I did my research: numerous Google searches helped me make a page-long list of contemporary art venues I wanted to visit during my internship. But assisting on the DMA’s newest exhibition, DallasSITES: Charting Contemporary Art, 1963 to Present, was what really taught me about Dallas’s artistic legacy.

Two members the Dallas art scenes who have been influential for decades: Janet Kutner and Paul Rogers Harris c.1960s, Courtesy of Paul Rogers Harris, Dallas, TX

Two members of the Dallas art scene who have been influential for decades: Janet Kutner and Paul Rogers Harris, c.1960s, Courtesy of Paul Rogers Harris, Dallas, TX

I’ve spent the past nine months combing through archives, researching galleries, and learning about the evolution of the Dallas art scene. The exhibition, consisting mainly of ephemera from the past fifty years, will illustrate how dynamic the art community of North Texas has been. As a recent transplant, this project became my personal crash course. This history lesson served me well.

Map of Dallas, Courtesy of Swoon the Studio, Dallas, TX

Map of Dallas, Courtesy of Swoon the Studio, Dallas, TX

Dallas itself is a large city, and over the years the art scene has concentrated in different neighborhoods. Artists were extremely active in Fair Park and Uptown during the 1960s and 70s. With the establishment of the Arts District in the 80s, many art-related activities migrated to downtown. Deep Ellum became a serious locus for the arts in the 80s as well. Today, many galleries and institutions have relocated to the Design District. Interestingly, artist activity continued in all of these neighborhoods even when the larger cultural trends shifted. Meanwhile, universities produce interesting programs and bring important artists to visit and work in North Texas. The ephemera on view in DallasSITES reflect these events.

A visitor at the 1989 Dallas VideoFest, Courtesy of the DMA Archives

A visitor at the 1989 Dallas VideoFest, Courtesy of the DMA Archives

Some fun facts learned from this project:
Q: What is the oldest continuously running gallery in Dallas? A: Valley House Gallery & Sculpture Garden, established in 1955. Q: What is the oldest and largest video festival in the United States? A: Dallas’s own VideoFest! First held in 1986 at the Dallas Museum of Art, it provides a platform for experimental video art and Texas artists.

Claes Oldenburg, Poster for Injun Happening at the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts, April 6-7, 1962

Claes Oldenburg, poster for Injun happening at the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts, April 6-7, 1962

Claes Oldenburg is an iconic artist of the pop art movement, but did you know that in 1962 he staged one of his famous “happenings” in Dallas? Injun became a two-day collaboration with local artists at the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts (which merged with the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in 1963 to form the Dallas Museum of Art). That was a fun discovery! Oldenburg’s relationship with Dallas has continued for several decades. Further, I discovered that one of my favorite artists, Oliver Herring, participated in a 1997 group show called Termite Terrace at Angstrom Gallery in Dallas’s Fair Park neighborhood. When DallasSITES opens, visitors will truly see how active this community has been. One of the best parts of contemporary art is the opportunity to meet artists and other art lovers at openings and talks. Each month, there are dozens of exhibition openings, artist talks, and panels that keep Dallas exciting. There are established museums, commercial galleries, and temporary spaces ranging from empty storefronts to an artist’s living room. Artists from across the United States and even internationally are showing in nearby spaces, while the roster of local talent continues to grow.

Dallas’ art scene in action: A packed house at CentralTrak for its NEXT TOPIC series panel, “Creating an Art Community/Scene” on May 2, 2013, Courtesy of Sally Glass and CentralTrak, Dallas, TX

Dallas’s art scene in action: A packed house at CentralTrak for its NEXT TOPIC series panel “Creating an Art Community/Scene” on May 2, 2013, Courtesy of Sally Glass and CentralTrak, Dallas, TX

When you see all the ephemera in DallasSITES presented in one room, the cultural wealth of this city becomes readily apparent. On May 26, you, too, can experience a crash course of your own for free!

Alexander Unkovic is the McDermott Curatorial Intern for Contemporary Art at the DMA.

Seldom Scene: Re-Installing 50 Years Later an Art Exhibition for President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy

This weekend, the DMA-organized exhibition Hotel Texas: An Art Exhibition for the President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy opens. It brings together works of art that were on view in President Kennedy’s Fort Worth hotel suite in 1963. This is the first time the works have been reunited in fifty years. We’ve been installing in the galleries this past week, prior to the Sunday opening of this free exhibition.

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