Official behind-the-scenes blog of the Dallas Museum of Art
Recently, the European galleries on the second floor were reinstalled to present anew some of the greatest works in the Museum’s collection. A cluster of beautiful sculptures commands a corner in the midst of the modern area. Works by Constantin Brancusi, Barbara Hepworth, and Emile-Antoine Bourdelle appear in the foreground, while works by Auguste Rodin and Aristide Maillol can be seen just beyond the window.
Nicole Stutzman
Director of Teaching Programs and Partnerships
Our new installation Re-Seeing the Contemporary displays more than fifty works of the art from the DMA’s captivating contemporary collection. Some of the artists on view range from familiar abstract expressionists to lesser known artists at work today. As 2010 comes to a close, we thought it might be fun to take another look at the exhibition, re-seeing the exhibition into our own top ten list of interesting categories.
1. Paintings: 29
The majority of artworks in the exhibition are paintings.
Jackson Pollock, Cathedral, 1947 Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Bernard
Pollock changed the definition of painting—instead of painting on the wall or an easel, he laid the canvas on the floor and applied paint to it from above through pouring and dripping.
2. Sculptures off the wall: 9
Larry Bell, The Cube of the Iceberg II, 1975 Dallas Museum of Art, anonymous gift in memory of J. O. Lambert, Jr.
Although not your typical figurative sculpture, this work has a reflective quality that involves the viewer.
3. Sculptures on the wall: 5
Alan Saret, Deep Forest Green Dispersion, 1969 Dallas Museum of Art, gift of John Weber
Though sculptures are typically displayed using a base or plinth, this work also fits the category because of its three-dimensionality. Since the piece is made out of wire and hangs off of one nail, it must be reshaped with each installation, almost becoming a living thing like the plants or moss it resembles.
4. Collages: 3
Jess, Arkadia's Last Resort; or, Fete Champetre Up Mnemosyne Creek, 1976 Dallas Museum of Art, General Acquisitions Fund
Jess took images from various sources such as jigsaw puzzles, art books, advertisements, and store catalogues and combined them to create a collage in the shape of a landscape.
5. Works never shown before: 6
Jack Whitten, Slip Zone, 1971 The Rachofsky Collection and the Dallas Museum of Art through the DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund
A new acquisition that has not yet been on view, Slip Zone adds to the DMA’s collection of postwar abstract art. Whitten created the unique design by pulling various objects across the wet painted surface.
6. Works by women artists: 5
A few of the female artists are represented in the exhibition:
Jackie Ferrara, A213 Symik, 1982 Dallas Museum of Art, anonymous gift
Susie Rosmarin, Gingham, 1998 Dallas Museum of art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Bryant M. Hanley, Jr., in honor of Charles Wylie, The Lupe Murchison Curator of Contemporary Art
Anne Truitt, Come Unto These Yellow Sands II, 1979 Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Shonny and Hal Joseph (St. Louis, Missouri) in honor of Cindy and Armond Schwartz
7. Works by Texas artists: 2
Christian Schumann, Nomads, 1998-1999 Dallas Museum of Art, Texas Artists Fund
Christian Schumann graduated from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, located just blocks away from the DMA.
8. Works with people: 11
Wallace Berman, Untitled, 1964 Dallas Museum of Art, General Acquisitions Fund
At first glance, this collage may appear to be a repetition of the same picture. Upon further inspection, though, you can see that each hand holds a transistor radio, which in turn frames images of people, animals, and objects.
9. Works with text: 14
Glenn Ligon, Untitled, 2002 Dallas Museum of Art, DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund
Inclusion of text is a modern development which Ligon often uses in his art. As the text progresses, it becomes more and more unclear.
10. Works with hot pink: 3
Pink is the color of happiness and works including hot pink just make us smile.
Charline von Heyl, Untitled (3/00), III, 2000 Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Kathleen and Roland Augustine in honor of Robert Hoffman
This painting, a recent museum acquisition, recalls a tropical rainforest inhabited by abstracted animal-like forms. The shocking combination of colors—yellow, green, turquoise, and hot pink—draw your attention to the composition.
Over the holidays we hope you will visit the DMA to discover the countless connections you can make with Re-Seeing the Contemporary and with the larger DMA collection.
Haley Berkman is the McDermott Curatorial Intern for Contemporary Art and Sarah Vitek is the McDermott Education Intern for Adult Programming at the Dallas Museum of Art.
Today is the day we’ve been waiting for–it’s opening day for Dallas’s annual State Fair of Texas! Every year millions of people visit Fair Park, the home of the State Fair, for culinary adventures, rides, expositions, and other events. But what many visitors don’t know is that the fairgrounds also boast a number of sculptures and adorned structures created by 20th-century Texas artists who are represented in the DMA’s collections.
Several of the artists featured in our current show Texas Sculpture were commissioned to create sculpture for the fairgrounds in the early 20th century. In 1936 the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in Fair Park (a predecessor of the DMA) prepared a landmark exhibition of works by nationally and internationally recognized sculptors for the Texas centennial celebration. That exhibition, as well as the one currently on view at the DMA, included works by Michael G. Owen, Allie V. Tennant, Dorothy Austin, and Evaline Sellors, among others.
If you’re a fan of the State Fair, many of you have seen this:
It’s by Allie V. Tennant (1898-1971), who was commissioned by the Centennial Committee to create the gold-leaf on bronze Tejas Warrior (1936) at the Hall of State in Fair Park. On view in our Texas Sculpture exhibition are two other works by Tennant, Woman’s Head and Negro Head. In 1940 she created the reliefs Cattle, Oil, and Wheat for the Aquarium at Fair Park under the Federal Works Agency.
Allie V. Tennant, "Woman's Head," n.d., red sandstone, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Dr. and Mrs. Robert W. Webb
Dorothy Austin, "Noggin," c. 1933, white pine, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of an anonymous friend
Who says fried Frito pie and art don’t go together?
Back in October, I blogged about the Beat Generation and Abstract Expressionism. Since then, I have continued to explore connections between great works of literature and works of art in the DMA collection. The number of literary connections in our collection is amazing, and I’m excited to share some of them with you.
For example, did you know that the characters of Dick and Nicole Diver in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night were inspired by the artist Gerald Murphy and his wife Sara? Fitzgerald even dedicated the novel to them: “To Gerald and Sara–Many fêtes.” Gerald and Sara Murphy were Americans who made their home on the French Riviera, which is where Part I of Tender is the Night takes place. The Murphys were also great friends with authors like Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway and with artists like Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger. The DMA owns two paintings by Gerald Murphy: Watch and Razor. These are two of only seven paintings by Murphy still known to exist today.
Gerald and Sara Murphy
Jacques-Louis David, Apollo and Diana Attacking the Children of Niobe, 1772
My favorite literary connection is between Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s Ugolino and His Children and Dante’s Inferno. Count Ugolino resides in the lowest circle of Hell. During his lifetime, Ugolino was jailed for treachery and was locked away with nothing to eat. Eventually, his sons and grandsons began to die, and they pleaded with Ugolino to eat their flesh so he would stay nourished. Carpeaux’s sculpture shows Ugolino gnawing at his own fingers, and we get a sense of the agony he must be feeling as he tries to decide whether or not to devour his own family members.
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Ugolino and His Children, 1860 (cast c. 1871)
If you love literature and the Dallas Museum of Art as much as I do, you should attend the Late Night celebration on January 15th. Arts and Letters Live will kick off their 2010 season with a “Literary Deathmatch.” Four authors representing different Texas cities will compete to be named the Literary Deathmatch Champion. It sounds like an event not to be missed!
Shannon Karol
Tour Coordinator
