Displaying items by tag: arthur dove

From New York to New Mexico: Masterworks of American Modernism from the Vilcek Foundation Collection opened at Phoenix Art Museum on June 7, 2015. The exhibition includes 65 objects of American modernism spanning more than fifty years by notable artists like Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley and Georgia O’Keeffe. The subject matter ranges from the skyscrapers of New York City to the adobe homes of the American Southwest. These objects are on loan from the Vilcek Foundation in New York that was started by Marica and Jan Vilcek, immigrants from the former Czechoslovakia.

The Currier Museum of Art announced the acquisition of an important late oil painting by American John Marin (1870-1953). Movement in Red (1946) reveals Marin’s bold technique, which conveys a dynamic vision of boats sailing off the coast of Cape Split, Maine. It is on view in the Currier’s Modern Gallery.

“The Currier has a long tradition of thoughtfully acquiring important works of art that support our collection,” said Susan Strickler, Currier CEO and director. “Marin’s stunning painting joins major paintings in the Museum’s collection by his contemporaries Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley and Charles Sheeler. They offer our community an exceptional view of one of America’s most important and innovative artists of the first half of the 20th century.”

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has announced plans for a major renovation of its Lila Acheson Wallace Wing. Completed in 1987, the Wing houses the museum’s Modern and contemporary collection, which includes works by the circle of early American modernists around Alfred Stieglitz, including Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O'Keeffe, and John Marin; large-scale paintings by Abstract Expressionists, such as Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko; and modern design, from Josef Hoffmann and members of the Wiener Werkstätte to Art Nouveau jewelry by René Lalique.

The Met, which is the largest art museum in the United States, is in the midst of re-evaluating its layout, and addressing the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing’s shortcomings is a top priority. As it stands, the Wing does not allow for a chronological presentation of the museum’s collection, creating a disjointed visitor experience. To remedy the issue, The Met plans to rebuild the Wing, potentially from scratch. Enhanced exhibition space will also allow the museum to better display its Modern and contemporary art holdings, which got a considerable upgrade last spring when philanthropist and cosmetics mogul Leonard A. Lauder donated 79 Cubist paintings, drawings, and sculptures.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, has purchased two paintings by pioneering 20th-century American artists -- “Lattice and Awning” by Arthur Dove and “Summer Fantasy” by George Bellows. Dove, an early American modernist who spent most of his life in New York, was not previously represented in a public collection in Los Angeles County. The late-career landscape by Bellows, who is best known for his gritty depictions of day-to-day life, will enhance The Huntington’s collection of works by the realist painter.

Kevin Salatino, Hannah and Russell Kully Director of the Art Collections at The Huntington, said, “We have strengthened our collection of great American paintings dramatically with these acquisitions. ‘Lattice and Awning’ is a superb example of the artist’s work at a peak moment in his career, while ‘Summer Fantasy’ is a fascinating, multifaceted painting that eloquently fills a gap in our collection. Each will add invaluable depth to our display of American art.”

The works will go on view on July 19, when The Huntington opens five new rooms in its Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art, which house one of the largest collections of American art in California. The Huntington’s holdings span from the colonial period through the mid-20th century and include works by John Singleton Copley, Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, John Sloan, and Robert Motherwell as well as a selection of American decorative arts.

Between 2010 and 2013, 100 American masterworks from the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. traveled to museums in Italy, Spain, Japan, Tennessee, Texas, and Florida. The exhibition earned rave reviews and was seen by more than 30,000 people. The Phillips Collection is currently hosting an expanded version of this hit show, titled “Made in the USA: American Masters from the Phillips Collection, 1850-1970.”

The exhibition is the most comprehensive presentation of the museum’s American art collection undertaken in nearly 40 years. “Made in the USA” presents over 200 works from the museum’s holdings including seascapes, city scenes, abstract canvases, and portraits. The exhibition is organized chronologically, beginning with American art from the late 19th century and ending with works from the postwar years. “Made in the USA” includes paintings, drawings, and etchings by Thomas Eakins, Rockwell Kent, Edward Hopper, John Marin, Arthur Dove, and Willem de Kooning.

The Phillips Collection, which was founded in 1921 by Duncan Phillips, was the first museum in the United States dedicated to American art. Over the course of 50 years, Phillips built a collection of nearly 2,000 pieces of modern art of which 1,400 were American.

“Made in the USA” will be on view at the Phillips Collection through August 31.

On November 9, 2013 the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas unveiled the exhibition The Artists’ Eye: Georgia O’Keeffe and the Alfred Stieglitz Collection. The monumental presentation features 101 works of American and European art as well as African art from the collection of photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz. Works on view include masterpieces by his wife, Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Paul Cezanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec.

The exhibition traces the rise of American Modernism, a movement that Stieglitz championed through his career as a photographer and gallerist. When he opened his gallery in the early 20^th century, Stieglitz was one of the first gallery owners in the United States to showcase European Modernists. Soon, he became devoted to highlighting the works of American modernists, often purchasing artworks from them and providing them with studio space.

The collection that comprises The Artists’ Eye was donated to Fisk University in Nashville by O’Keeffe after Stieglitz’s death in 1946 and is now co-owned by Crystal Bridges and Fisk. The collection will travel between the two institutions every two years.

The Artists’ Eye will be on view at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art through February 3, 2014.

The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. will unveil its first permanent installation in over 50 years. Founded by the art collector and critic Duncan Phillips (1886-1966) in 1921, the Phillips Collection is the United States’ first modern art museum.

The new addition to the institution is a room made entirely from beeswax titled Wax Room. The experimental piece is the work of Wolfgang Laib (b. 1950), a conceptual German artist who is well known for his sculptural works made from natural materials. Laib has been making his beeswax chambers for over 25 years using hundreds of pounds of melted beeswax to coat walls and ceilings. The otherworldly spaces he creates are warmly lit by single hanging light bulbs.

The Phillips Collection’s other permanent installation is its Rothko Room, which holds four paintings by the abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko (1903-1970). The intimate presentation of Rothko’s works was added as a permanent exhibit in 1960, six years before Duncan Phillips’ death. Phillips worked closely with Rothko, deciding which walls to hang each painting on and the kind of lighting and furniture that would best suit the room. The Phillips Collection was the first American museum to dedicate a space to Rothko’s work and it remains the only one designed in collaboration with the artist himself.

Laib’s progressive work is a welcomed addition to the Phillips Collection. While Phillips’ holdings consisted of many Impressionist paintings and other mainstream works, he also had a taste for the unconventional. Phillips was one of the earliest patrons of American modernists including John Marin (1870-1953) and Arthur Dove (1880-1946) and also harbored great admiration for Abstract Expressionism before it became a respected art movement.

Laib’s Wax Room will be unveiled on March 2, 2013.

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia announced plans to build a new gallery to display their works on paper collection. The addition will be housed in the museum’s Historic Landmark Building, which was designed by the acclaimed American architect, Frank Furness (1839-1912). A $250,000 grant from The Richard C. von Hess Foundation will be used to fund the project.

Works on paper are a huge component of PAFA’s permanent collection, encompassing over 75% of the museum’s holdings. The collection features drawings, watercolors, sketchbooks, prints, photographs, and experimental media from all periods of American art. Highlights include a collection of photographs by Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), studies and sketchbooks by William Glackens (1870-1938), and works by John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), Arthur Dove (1880-1946), and Robert Motherwell (1915-1991).

The new gallery will allow the institution to significantly expand public access to its vast collection while keeping the light-sensitive objects safe. A separate space will be allotted for scholars conducting research and curators and faculty who will use the collection for educational purposes. PAFA has selected the Philadelphia-based architectural firm Atkin Olshin Schade to design the Works on Paper Gallery. Construction is expected to start early this year and last until Summer 2013.

On December 22, American Legends: From Calder to O’Keeffe opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The exhibition features works by defining artists of the first half of the twentieth century including Charles Burchfield (1893-1967), Alexander Calder (1898-1976), Stuart Davis (1892-1964), Arthur Dove (1880-1946), Marsden Hartley (1877-1943) , Edward Hopper (1882-1967), Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), and Elie Nadelman (1880-1946).

Drawing from the Whitney’s impressive permanent collection, the yearlong show is organized into small-scale retrospectives for each artist and includes iconic and lesser-known works across a range of mediums. While, many of the works have not been on view in years, the show also includes some of the Whitney’s best-known holdings including Edward Hopper’s A Woman in the Sun (1961), Jacob Lawrence’s War Series 1946), and Georgia O’Keeffe’s Summer Days (1936).  

Curated by Barbara Haskell, the exhibition will undergo a rotation in May 2013 so that other artists’ works can be installed. Including realist and modernist masterpieces, American Legends illustrates the dynamic and varied nature of American art during the early twentieth century.  

The back-to-back American art auctions that took place at Christie’s and Sotheby’s this week both garnered impressive numbers. The auction at Christie’s on November 28 set the bar high when it reached $38,469,650 in sales. However, Sotheby’s followed up strong and achieved a total sale of $27,608,500, exceeding the high estimate of $24,158,000. Franklin Riehlman, owner of Franklin Riehlman Fine Art in New York City said, “Prices at Sotheby’s were nice and strong. Christie’s had a phenomenal sale and Liz Sterling has done a wonderful job reconstructing the department.” Elizabeth Sterling was appointed the head of American art at Christie’s earlier this year.

The top lot at Christie’s was Edward Hopper’s October on Cape Cod (1946), which went for $9.6 million and set a new record for the most expensive item sold to an online bidder. The oil painting, which features a house and small barn from a distance, is one of the last works by Hopper remaining in private hands. Other solid sales were Charles Burchfield’s Golden Dream (1959), which brought $1,202,500; Stuart Davis’ City Snow Scene (1911), which also reached $1,202,500; and Martin John Heade’s Hummingbird Perched on the Orchid Plant (1901), which brought $1,802,500.

Georgia O’Keeffe fared well at both auctions and took the top two lots at Sotheby’s; both plant paintings, Autumn Leaf II (1927) realized $4,282,500 and A White Camellia (1938) brought $3,218,500. “O’Keeffe did very well,” said Riehlman. “There was a lot of bidding.” An O’Keeffe painting titled Sun Water Maine (1922) also reached the second highest price at Christie’s when it realized $2,210,500, exceeding the high estimate of $1,500,000.

Norman Rockwell continued to perform well at Sotheby’s and two paintings exceeded their high estimates when The Muscleman (1941) sold for $2,210,500 (high estimate: $800,000) and Doctor and Doll (1942) reached $1,874,500 (high estimate: $700,000). Other impressive sales included Alfred Jacob Miller’s Caravan En Route [Sir William Drummond Stewart’s Caravan] (circa 1850), which went for $1,762,500 and Arthur Dove’s Town Scraper (circa 1933), which realized $1,258,500.

“The market for early modernists seems very strong,” said Riehlman. “Older works didn’t do as well. Cassatt and Prendergast are spotty, but 15 years ago every Cassatt would have sold.” Out of the one Mary Cassatt work offered at Sotheby’s and two present at Christie’s, not a single piece sold. Similarly, Maurice Prendergast’s one painting offered by Sotheby’s, Park Street Church, Boston (circa 1905-07), failed to sell and at Sotheby’s, Picnic Party (circa 1900-03) didn’t quite reach its low estimate of $300,000 when it sold for $290,500 and New Hampshire (circa 1910-13) just broke its low estimate of $40,000 when it realized $43,750.

“Both houses are being very selective in terms of traditional 18^th and 19th century materials,” said Riehlman. Buyers are much more likely to make significant purchases when the majority of works are top-quality. Despite the declining interest in older works, there was a lot of action at both sales. Riehlman was planning on buying Marvin Cone’s Stone City Landscape (1936), which realized $752,500, a record for the artist. “It went like a freight train right by me,” he said, a testament to just how eager buyers were this week.