Diplomat tells the stories behind “Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection”
Pioneering diplomat Madeleine Albright delighted hundreds of museum visitors throughout the weekend of July 13-14 during her visit in honor of the recent opening of Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection.
The weekend began Friday afternoon with a walk-through of the exhibition for members of the local and regional media, at which Secretary Albright stopped at nearly every case within the gallery to share her insights and recollections. Local jeweler Perry’s Fine, Antique and Estate Jewelry, which provided support for the exhibition, presented Secretary Albright with a spectacular 18-karat gold pin encrusted with 2.75 carats of diamonds, shaped in the crown inspired by Queen Charlotte and the city’s logo. The base of the crown was hand-engraved with “Albright” and set between an olive branch and a bundle of thirteen arrows.
Later that evening, Albright attended a members-only VIP reception at which many of the more than 300 attendees were treated to one-on-one conversations with Secretary Albright. She then thrilled the crowd with an impromptu question-and-answer session, sharing her insights into global diplomacy.
Saturday morning, Albright returned to the museum for an educational program featuring Youth Opportunity University, Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, Johnson C. Smith University, Queens University, international students, and community leaders. After that, a sellout crowd packed into the auditorium for “A Conversation with Madeleine Albright,” and dozens more attendees filled satellite seating in the atrium. She then signed hundreds of copies of the book “Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat’s Jewel Box” and her recently-published “Prague Winter” (both on sale in the Mint Museum Shops).
Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection will remain on view through September 23 at Mint Museum Uptown. It is brought to The Mint Museum through the support of Perry’s Fine, Antique and Estate Jewelry. Exhibition organized by the Museum of Arts and Design. Generous support for this exhibition was provided by Bren Simon and for the exhibition catalogue by St. John Knits.
About Perry’s Fine, Antique and Estate Jewelry
Perry’s Fine, Antique and Estate Jewelry has been in business for over thirty-four years and has been established as one of the nation’s finest antique and estate jewelers. Ernest Perry, the company’s owner and president, has more than thirty-five years experience and expertise in fine, antique and estate jewelry. Perry’s consigns, buys, sells, and trades vintage, antique and estate jewelry, gold, coins, diamonds, silver, platinum, and much more. www.perrysjewelry.com
(Photo of Madeleine Albright with Dr. Kathleen V. Jameson, President & CEO of the Mint, by Wendy McCarty, Aphrodite Photography Inc.)
Both groundbreaking exhibitions to be accompanied by special events
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (June 19, 2012) – Two exhibitions illustrating diverse and thought-provoking views of what it means to be an American will open June 30 at Mint Museum Uptown. The community is invited to engage with the museum during special events associated with each exhibition.
The exhibitions mark the beginning of a spectacular lineup The Mint Museum will have on display when tens of thousands of visitors arrive in Charlotte for the Democratic National Convention in early September. More news of other exhibitions and special projects will be arriving in the coming weeks.
“The eyes of the nation and world will be on Charlotte soon, and the Mint is prepared to lead the way in displaying the depth and breadth of our city’s ascending cultural scene,” said Dr. Kathleen V. Jameson, President & CEO of the Mint. “We are proud to be able to bring two such significant exhibitions to our community and visitors.”
Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial
30 June – 30 September 2012
“All truth is hard truth. We’re in the darkness now, and we got to accept the hard truth to bring on the light. You can hide the truth, but you can’t get rid of it. When truth come out in the light, we get the beauty of the world.” –Thornton Dial
An artist raised in the rural South, Thornton Dial is a keen observer of the human spectacle and its narratives of corruption and moral strength, folly and triumph. As an artist, he has spent the last two decades exploring the truth of American history and culture in all its complexities and contradictions. This exhibition presents a major survey of Dial’s work, an epic gathering of over thirty large-scale paintings, sculptures, and wall assemblages that address the most compelling issues of our time.
The Mint is kicking off the exhibition with a pre-opening reception, “Get DIAL’d In,” on June 27 from 6-10 p.m. at Mint Museum Uptown. The event will feature a performance by the Grammy Award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, and Dial himself is scheduled to be present as a special guest. Tickets are $50 for Mint members, and $75 for non-members, and proceeds will benefit the Romare Bearden Society, which supports acquisitions of works by African American artists. (https://mintmuseumold.wpengine.com/happenings/9/opening-reception-for-hard-truths-the-art-of-thornton-dial)
The exhibition and opening reception are brought to the community with generous support from Wells Fargo. “Wells Fargo is proud to provide major funding to bring this compelling exhibition to the community,” said Jay Everette, the chair-elect of The Mint Museum’s Board of Trustees and the Senior Vice President and Community Affairs Manager for Greater Charlotte for Wells Fargo. “And we are especially excited to host the opening community celebration. We invite our neighbors and friends to join in previewing these highly significant works by Mr. Dial.”
Added Brad Thomas, the Mint’s curator of contemporary art: “Since I joined the Mint team in January, it has been my distinct pleasure to work with our staff and many supporters on bringing this remarkable body of work to our museum. This retrospective exhibition shines a well-deserved light on one of the most original and prolific American artists of our time.”
The Mint decided to engage both its campuses in the exhibition. In addition to the large-scale assemblages on display at Mint Museum Uptown, a selection of drawings by Dial will be on display at Mint Museum Randolph, 2730 Randolph Road in Charlotte, in the Dickson Gallery for the duration of the exhibition.
Dial spent his childhood toiling in the farm fields of western Alabama, followed by decades spent as a laborer in the region’s factories and heavy industry. A working-class man whose art was weaned in the unheralded expressive practices of the black vernacular South, Dial speaks in a voice long overlooked in the canons of modern art and culture. Since his discovery in the late 1980s, critics have likened Dial’s complex and tumultuous creations to the renowned works of such artists as Jackson Pollock and Anselm Kiefer.
To create his art, Dial employs a vast universe of symbolically charged materials — from plastic grave flowers, child’s toys, bed springs, and carpet scraps to cow skulls and goat carcasses. Salvaged from garbage cans and trash heaps, these items reappear in dense accumulations amidst the artist’s fields of dripped paint and expressionistic brushworks.
Over the years, Dial has tackled a wide range of social and political subjects in his art, from gripping commentaries on the homeless, the abuse of the environment, and the failings of global capitalism to haunting meditations on the War in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and the tragedy of 9/11. Concerned with representing those otherwise rendered invisible within the contours of history, he has also created many works on the plight of women, labor, the rural poor, and the impoverished underclass. Still other paintings and sculptures examine the long history of racial oppression in America. Recounting the atrocities of slavery and Southern sharecropping, the aspirations of the Great Migration, the fight for Civil Rights, and other episodes in black memory, these pieces form a powerful anthology on the human struggle for freedom and equality.
A fully illustrated catalogue is available in The Mint Museum Shops for $45. In addition to the support provided by Wells Fargo, Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial received additional support provided by Duke Energy. Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial is organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection
30 June – 23 September 2012
During her career in public service, Madeleine Albright famously used her jewelry to communicate diplomatic messages. Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection reveals an intriguing story of American history and foreign policy as told through former U.S. Secretary of State Albright’s jeweled pins.
“I am delighted that the pin exhibition will be at the spectacular Mint Museum, particularly at such an important time for Charlotte,” said Secretary Albright. “This is an exciting time for Charlotte residents to share with the rest of the world the city’s rich and diverse cultural heritage.”
Albright will visit Charlotte in July for a series of events to promote community learning and engagement with the exhibition. On Friday July 13, following a media event at the museum, Albright will appear at a members-only reception at 6:30 p.m. (tickets are $150 per person, $200 per couple; attendees must be Mint members to purchase). On Saturday July 14, she will appear at a special educational program for invited local students before conducting a public conversation at Mint Museum Uptown at 1 p.m., followed by a book signing. Tickets to the public event are $20, or $10 for members. (https://mintmuseumold.wpengine.com/happenings/29/a-conversation-with-former-secretary-of-state-madeleine-albright)
The collection that Secretary Albright cultivated is distinctive and democratic — sometimes demure and understated, sometimes outlandish and outspoken — and spans more than a century of jewelry design and fascinating pieces from across the globe. The more than 200 works on view are chosen for their symbolic value. While some are fine antiques, many are costume jewelry. Together the pieces in this expressive collection explore the power of jewelry to communicate through a style and language of its own.
Albright told reporters during a visit to the Mint in February: “My pin collection….would not exist if it had not been for Saddam Hussein.” Jewelry became part of Albright’s diplomatic arsenal in 1994 when Saddam Hussein’s government-controlled press referred to Albright, who was at that time U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, as an “unparalleled serpent.” At her next meeting on the subject of Iraq, Albright wore a golden snake brooch, beginning a career-long practice of using jewelry to convey and reinforce diplomatic messages.
“While President George H.W. Bush had been known for saying ‘Read my lips,’ I began urging colleagues and reporters to ‘Read my pins’,” Albright has said. This traveling exhibition is accompanied by the book “Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat’s Jewel Box” (2009), which is on sale now in The Mint Museum Shops ($40). Secretary Albright has given the world an opportunity to explore American history and foreign policy through the unique lens of jewelry.
Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection is brought to The Mint Museum through the support of Perry’s at SouthPark. Generous support for the original exhibition was provided by Bren Simon and for the exhibition catalogue by St. John Knits. Organized by the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.
ABOUT LEVINE CENTER FOR THE ARTS
Levine Center for the Arts is one of Charlotte’s key cultural destinations, comprised of Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, John S. and James L. Knight Theater, Mint Museum Uptown, and Duke Energy Center. The Levine Center was made possible through the Campaign for Cultural Facilities, the support of the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, and the generosity of the Leon Levine Foundation, one of the country’s largest and most impactful philanthropic organizations.
The opening of Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial at the Mint coincides with the opening of America I AM: The African American Imprint at the Gantt Center. America I AM, on display 30 June 2012-1 January 2013, celebrates nearly 500 years of African American contributions to the United States. The exhibition was developed in partnership with Tavis Smiley and organized by Cincinnati Museum Center and Arts and Exhibitions International (AEI). America I AM is made possible by Wal-Mart, which serves as its presenting sponsor. Visit ganttcenter.org for more information.
Exhibition brings an up-close look at diplomat’s jewelry – and messages
CHARLOTTE, NC (February 9, 2012) – During her career in public service, Madeleine Albright famously used her jewelry to communicate diplomatic messages. From June 30 through September 23, 2012, The Mint Museum is scheduled to present the exhibition Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection, which reveals an intriguing story of American history and foreign policy as told through Secretary Albright’s jeweled pins.
“The Mint Museum is proud to bring this groundbreaking exhibition to Charlotte audiences at the same time the city is preparing to host one of the nation’s ultimate exercises of democracy, the Democratic National Convention,” said Dr. Kathleen V. Jameson, President & CEO of The Mint Museum. The convention runs September 3-6, 2012.
Secretary Albright visited The Mint Museum Thursday to tour the galleries and speak to reporters about the planned exhibition. “I am delighted this exhibit will be in Charlotte,” she told those in attendance, “and it’s especially neat that it will happen during the convention.” She is also scheduled to return to Charlotte July 13-14 for a series of events around the exhibition, including a private invitation-only event on July 13 and public events on July 14.
Organized by the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the exhibition features more than 200 pieces of jewelry. The collection that Secretary Albright cultivated is distinctive and democratic — sometimes demure and understated, sometimes outlandish and outspoken — and spans more than a century of jewelry design and fascinating pieces from across the globe. The works on view are chosen for their symbolic value, and while some are fine antiques, many are costume jewelry. Together the pieces in this expressive collection explore the power of jewelry to communicate through a style and language of its own.
Jewelry became part of Albright’s diplomatic arsenal in 1994 when Saddam Hussein’s government-controlled press referred to Albright, who was at that time U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, as an “unparalleled serpent.” At her next meeting on the subject of Iraq, Albright wore a golden snake brooch, beginning a career-long practice of using jewelry to convey and reinforce diplomatic messages. Albright told reporters Thursday: “My pin collection….would not exist if it had not been for Saddam Hussein.”
“While President George H.W. Bush had been known for saying ‘Read my lips,’ I began urging colleagues and reporters to ‘Read my pins’,” Albright has said. Through this traveling exhibition and the accompanying book “Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat’s Jewel Box” (2009), which is on sale now in The Mint Museum Shops. Secretary Albright has given the world an opportunity to explore American history and foreign policy through the unique lens of jewelry.
Support
Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection was organized by the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. Generous support for the original exhibition was provided by Bren Simon and for the exhibition catalogue by St. John Knits. The Mint Museum is supported by the Arts & Science Council and North Carolina Arts Council.
Museum announces upcoming slate, including ‘Fairytales, Fantasy, & Fear’ and ‘Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection’
More will be added to this list in coming months, so keep checking back at mintmuseum.org for updates!
Surrealism and Beyond
Mint Museum UPTOWN
11 February – 13 May 2012
This project brings together three groundbreaking exhibitions and comprises the largest and most significant examination Surrealism and Surrealist-inspired art ever presented in the Southeast.
Double Solitaire: The Surreal Worlds of Kay Sage and Yves Tanguy explores the exchange of ideas that informed the work of the important Surrealist artists Kay Sage (American, 1898-1963) and Yves Tanguy (French/American, 1900-1955) during their 15-year relationship. It is the first exhibition to examine Sage and Tanguy’s work from this perspective, the first significant exhibition of Tanguy’s art organized by an American museum since 1955, and the first major gathering of Sage’s paintings since 1977. Double Solitaire: The Surreal Worlds of Kay Sage and Yves Tanguy is made possible through support from The Mint Museum Auxiliary and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation. Exhibition organized by The Mint Museum and Katonah Museum of Art.
Seeing the World Within: Charles Seliger in the 1940s focuses on the remarkable paintings and drawings created by the American artist Charles Seliger (1926-2009) during the first decade of his career. It is made possible through support from The Mint Museum Auxiliary and awards from the Terra Foundation for American Art and The Dedalus Foundation, Inc. Exhibition organized by The Mint Museum.
Gordon Onslow Ford: Voyager and Visionary is the first retrospective of the British-American Surrealist painter’s work organized by an American museum in more than 30 years. Featuring approximately 30 paintings by the artist, it is drawn entirely from his family’s collection. It is made possible through support from The Mint Museum Auxiliary and organized by The Mint Museum. For a complete news release about these exhibitions, visit mintmuseum.org and click on “News/Press Releases.”
Fairytales, Fantasy, & Fear
Mint Museum UPTOWN 3 March – 8 July 2012
Fairytales, Fantasy, & Fear brings together the work of several internationally acclaimed artists, including Mattia Biagi, Mark Newport, Kako Ueda, Tom Price, and Kate Malone. Known for his work in tar, Italian artist Biagi reinterprets icons of lost innocence, such as Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella’s carriage. Newport, an American fiber artist, creates hand-knit acrylic re-creations of heroes’ costumes, which combine their heroic, protective, and ultra-masculine yet vulnerable personas. Ueda, a Japanese paper artist, uses unsettling imagery, such as insects and skeletons, in her detailed cutouts to represent the fine line between beauty and decay. Price, a British furniture designer, is known for his use of polypropylene tubing to create spiky shapes that evoke forms from the natural world. And Malone, a British ceramic artist, is known for her sensual Neo-Baroque forms and mastery of crystalline glazes.
This thematic exhibition, generously supported by the Mint Museum Auxiliary, also includes selections from the Mint’s permanent collection and loans from private collections, and utilizes flat-screen televisions for a one-of-a-kind experience. For a complete news release about this exhibition, visit mintmuseum.org and click on “News/Press Releases.”
Sophisticated Surfaces: The Pottery of Herb Cohen
Mint Museum RANDOLPH
7 April 2012 – 6 January 2013
Organized as part of the Mint’s celebration of its 75th anniversary, this exhibition focuses on the ceramic creations of Herb Cohen, a master potter and seminal figure in the museum’s own history. Sophisticated Surfaces: The Pottery of Herb Cohen brings together approximately 60 works, including selections from the Mint’s permanent collection and loans from numerous private collections. Many of Cohen’s works feature intricate, abstract patterns carved into the clay surface, along with innovative experimentations in glazing, which harmoniously blend purity of form with sophisticated surface decoration. Following the evolution of his seven-decade-long career as an award-winning potter, this exhibition demonstrates in a variety of forms that range from the functional to the sculptural the inimitable skill and style for which Cohen has become known.
Born in Manhattan, Cohen first learned to throw on the potter’s wheel at the remarkably young age of 6, a craft he has continued to practice throughout his life. After earning his MFA from the prestigious New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Cohen worked as a designer for Hyalyn Porcelain Company in Hickory, N.C. He eventually settled in Charlotte in the late 1950s, where he joined the staff of The Mint Museum and served as its acting director from 1968 to 1969. In the 1970s he moved to Blowing Rock, N.C. to establish his own studio, but returned to Charlotte in 2010, where he remains active in the local arts community.
The American Art Tile, 1880-1940
Mint Museum RANDOLPH
7 April 2012 – 6 January 2013
The popularity of art tiles for embellishing American architectural settings dates to the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. For the remainder of the nineteenth century, many middle-class and wealthy consumers incorporated the latest fashions of art tiles in their homes. Mass-produced tiles with refined details often featured famous portraits or vignettes. By the turn of the century, trends shifted to favor the handmade aesthetic of the Arts & Crafts Movement. American art tile companies enjoyed success for about 50 years, until the Great Depression and World War II forced many out of business. The Mint Museum will present approximately 40 tiles from its permanent collection in the American Decorative Arts Gallery, including the permanently installed fireplace surround, Arkansas Traveler, modeled and designed circa 1916 by Henry Chapman Mercer of Moravian Pottery & Tile Works, Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
Heritage Gallery
Mint Museum
RANDOLPH Opens 31 May 2012
From its inception as the first art museum in North Carolina in 1936, The Mint Museum has been an innovator and leader, a theme illustrated in the inaugural installation of the Heritage Gallery at Mint Museum Randolph. It will feature works of art, archival documents, and photographs documenting the growth and evolution of the museum, from its beginnings as the original branch of the U.S. Mint to its founding as an art museum to the present and beyond.
Matthew Weinstein
Mint Museum UPTOWN
28 April-19 August 2012
Matthew Weinstein, a visual artist currently living and working in Brooklyn, N.Y., has achieved notoriety in the art world as the first artist to focus exclusively on 3D animation. Beginning with a self-written dialogue or lyrics, Weinstein uses musical scores and written text to develop characters which he then renders by means of the animation program MAYA. Weinstein then casts actors to vocalize the dialogue, and musicians to create an auditory backdrop for the already visually-developed environments. Using precision airbrush techniques and single-hair paintbrushes, Weinstein also creates paintings, essentially abstractions of his animated worlds. These paintings accompany the digital installations and enable the artist to explore the often-tenuous boundary between the real and the virtual in contemporary culture.
The Charlotte Symphony Orchestra commissioned Weinstein to create a digital accompaniment to debut with their performance of Maurice Ravel’s Bolero on May 4. The Mint Museum has organized a spotlight exhibition of Weinstein’s art, including four paintings and two videos. Weinstein’s Chariots of the Gods features a mechanized female koi, voiced by Tony-award winning actress Natasha Richardson, who dangles from a golden chain in an empty restaurant. While she seems to carelessly meander through her environment with a smiling disposition, she offers discourse on such weighty subjects as the future, devolution, technology, aliens, and the impossibility of progress. A second video, Cruising 1980, is an homage to writer-director William Friedkin’s iconic film “Cruising” (1980). This exhibition is organized by The Mint Museum.
Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection
Mint Museum UPTOWN
30 June – 23 September 2012
During her career in public service, Madeleine Albright famously used her jewelry to communicate diplomatic messages. Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection reveals an intriguing story of American history and foreign policy as told through Secretary Albright’s jeweled pins. The exhibition will be on display during the Democratic National Convention, which will be in Charlotte September 3-6, 2012.
Organized by the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the exhibition features more than 200 pieces of jewelry. The collection that Secretary Albright cultivated is distinctive and democratic — sometimes demure and understated, sometimes outlandish and outspoken — and spans more than a century of jewelry design and fascinating pieces from across the globe. The works on view are chosen for their symbolic value, and while some are fine antiques, many are costume jewelry. Together the pieces in this expressive collection explore the power of jewelry to communicate through a style and language of its own.
Through this traveling exhibition and the accompanying book “Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat’s Jewel Box” (2009), Secretary Albright has given the world an opportunity to explore American history and foreign policy through the lens of jewelry. For a complete news release about this exhibition, visit mintmuseum.org and click on “News/Press Releases.”
Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial
Mint Museum UPTOWN
30 June – 30 September 2012
Thornton Dial is a keen observer of the human spectacle and its narratives of corruption and moral strength, folly and triumph. As an artist, he has spent the last two decades exploring the truth of American history and culture in all its complexities and contradictions. This exhibition presents a major survey of Dial’s work, an epic gathering of over fifty large-scale paintings, sculptures and wall assemblages that address the most compelling issues of our time. Born and raised in the rural South, Dial spent his childhood toiling in the farm fields of western Alabama, followed by decades spent as a laborer in the region’s factories and heavy industry. A working-class man whose art was weaned in the unheralded expressive practices of the black vernacular South, Dial speaks in a voice long overlooked in the canons of modern art and culture.
Since his discovery in the late 1980s, critics have likened Dial’s complex and tumultuous creations to the renowned works of such artists as Jackson Pollock and Anselm Kiefer. To create his art, Dial employs a vast universe of symbolically charged materials — from plastic grave flowers, child’s toys, bed springs and carpet scraps to cow skulls and goat carcasses. Salvaged from garbage cans and trash heaps, these items reappear in dense accumulations amidst the artist’s fields of dripped paint and expressionistic brushworks. Over the years, Dial has tackled a wide range of social and political subjects in his art, from gripping commentaries on the homeless, the abuse of the environment, and the failings of global capitalism to haunting meditations on the War in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and the tragedy of 9/11.
Concerned with representing those otherwise rendered invisible within the contours of history, he has also created many works on the plight of women, labor, the rural poor, and the impoverished underclass. Still other paintings and sculptures examine the long history of racial oppression in America. Recounting the atrocities of slavery and Southern sharecropping, the aspirations of the Great Migration, the flight for Civil Rights, and other episodes in black memory, these pieces form a powerful anthology on the human struggle for freedom and equality. Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial is organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Against the Grain: Wood in Contemporary Art, Craft, and Design
Mint Museum UPTOWN
1 September 2012 – 27 January 2013
This exhibition will examine woodworking in contemporary art across a broad spectrum of practices and concepts. It will engage aspects of art, craft, and design that have been characterized as “performative” and critique the traditional art/craft/design divide. There will be approximately 80 works in the exhibition including vessels, furniture, sculptures, paintings, installations, and works by an international roster of artists, crafts persons, and designers such as Alexandre Arrechea, Martin Baas, Sandford Biggers, David Ellsworth, Hugo França, Maria Elena Gonzalez, Robyn Horn, Donald Judd, Mel Kendrick, Silas Kopf, Sherrie Levine, Mark Lindquist, George Nakashima, Sarah Oppenheimer, Martin Puryear, Jean Shin, Bob Stocksdale, Alison Elizabeth Taylor, and Richard Woods. Objects from the Mint’s wood art collection will be included.
This timely exhibition addresses a heavily debated topic in the field: As the boundaries between art, craft, and design increasingly overlap, should these categories be redefined, and if so, how? Against the Grain uses the versatile medium of wood to address this issue, highlighting several artists represented in The Mint Museum’s collection, such as Mark Lindquist and Robyn Horn, as well as several that have been identified as artists to collect in the future, including Hugo França and Matthias Pliessnig.
Against the Grain will debut at The Mint Museum during the Democratic National Convention, followed by a presentation at Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York (March-May 2013). The exhibition is organized by the Museum of Arts and Design.
The Weir Family, 1820-1920: Expanding the Traditions of American Art
Mint Museum UPTOWN
20 October 2012 – 20 January 2013
This is the first major exhibition to examine collectively the paintings of the American artists Robert Walter Weir (1803-1889) and his two sons, John Ferguson Weir (1841-1926) and Julian Alden Weir (1851-1919). It traces the trajectory of American art across the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, exploring the wide range of styles in which Robert and his sons worked, as well as the way in which their transatlantic encounters helped to shape their art.
Robert Weir was one of the first American artists to study in Italy, working there from 1824-27. Upon his return to America, he became an associate at the recently-founded National Academy in New York in 1829 and, a few years later, an instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He was renowned for his talent as a portraitist and a history painter.
Robert’s first son John trained with his father as well as in Europe. He then taught at Yale University for forty-four years, establishing the first academic art program at a university in this country. Early in his career, he painted history and genre scenes, but was also an adept society portraitist.
John’s younger brother, Julian, was educated at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris from 1873-77. Although he initially expressed disdain for Impressionism and worked in an academic style, he later embraced the new movement and became one of the country’s leading Impressionist artists.
This exhibition was organized by the Brigham Young University Museum of Art and supported in part by the Henry Luce Foundation and by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. It will bring together between 60 and 70 paintings drawn from public and private collections, and will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue. It opened at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art and will travel to the New Britain Museum of American Art before making its final stop in Charlotte.