the members' magazine | spring 2016
TRANSCRIPT
The Members’ Magazine | Spring 2016
Chrysler
The striking portrait on the cover of this edition of Chrysler is of the noted author James Baldwin, painted by his friend Beauford Delaney. This is one of the Museum’s latest acquisitions—and it’s one that particularly pleases me.
This impressive painting captures the sensitivity of a man who was one of the most significant authors and essayists of the last 100 years and who was particularly incisive in his examination of the African American experience. Both the artist and the sitter were gay black men living and working in New York in the mid 20th century, biographical facts that are not irrelevant to the meaning of the painting. These factors may also account for the limited appreciation of Delaney’s work in his own lifetime. Thankfully, that assessment has changed in recent years, and now collectors and museums avidly seek his work.
The neon yellow-green background crackles with energy and hints at Baldwin’s own intellectual vitality. The quality of this extraordinary portrait matches the standard set by the best works in our collection. Its presence in our galleries allows us to tell a fuller story of painting in America. It also begins to redress a key weakness in our collection: the underrepresentation of African American artists.
Central to our mission is the desire to serve the broadest range of people. That is why we offer free admission and an eclectic exhibition schedule. To test this philosophy, we often ask how our collection and our mission match. While many factors influence our acquisition decisions, among the basic considerations are:
Does the work build on our existing strengths? Does it fill notable gaps in our collection? How might this object speak to our patrons? What stories could we tell with this work? Is it of exceptional quality? Can we afford it?
The Delaney painting, as well as other recent purchases now on view such as Alvar Aalto’s Savoy Vase, Liza Lou’s Gild Amber/Divide, and Carleton Watkins’ historical photograph of Yosemite, fulfill all our requirements, as well as those of our Collections Committee. And the generosity of various donors has made it possible to acquire other important works of art that will enhance our collection and improve our visitors’ experience. I believe these well-chosen accessions make our great Museum even better. You can read more about our new additions in our cover story, but better yet, come take a look for yourself and tell us what you think. I think you’ll be pleased as well.
Erik H. Neil, Director
board of trustees 2015–2016 Lewis W. Webb III, Esq., ChairThomas L. Stokes, Jr., Vice ChairLelia Graham Webb, SecretaryYvonne T. AllmondDudley Anderson, M.D., F.A.C.P.Tony AtwaterShirley C. BaldwinCarolyn K. BarryKathleen BroderickDeborah H. ButlerSusan R. ColpittsElizabeth FraimEdith G. GrandyJames A. HixonMarc JacobsonLinda H. KaufmanPamela C. KloeppelHarry T. LesterSuzanne MastraccoOriana M. McKinnonPeter M. Meredith, Jr.J. Douglas PerryC. Arthur Rutter IIILisa B. SmithBob SasserRichard Waitzer Joseph T. WaldoWayne F. Wilbanks
chrysler magazineDenis Finley, Director of CommunicationsCheryl Little, Museum Editor/ Publications ManagerEd Pollard, Museum PhotographerJane Cleary, Graphics Manager
Chrysler Magazine is a quarterly publication produced for and mailed to Chrysler Museum Members as a benefit of their generous support.
Update or verify your membership information at http://reservations.chrysler.org or contact Database Manager Fleater Allen at:Chrysler Museum of ArtOne Memorial Place, Norfolk, VA 23510(757) 333-6287 | [email protected].
The Chrysler Museum of Art, all rights reserved © 2015
on the coverBeauford Delaney(American, 1901–1979)Portrait of James Baldwin, 1965Oil on canvasMuseum purchase© Estate of Beauford Delaney, used by permission
SMILING AT A NEW PORTRAIT
inside front cover
Director’s Note
in the galleries
2 Exhibitions on View
5 Loans, Here and There
6 Spotlight Exhibition: In and Out of The Box with Kota Ezawa
8 Collection Connection: New Light on Land: Photographs from the Chrysler Collection
cover story
14 New Additions to the Chrysler Collection
chrysler news
11 Always Learning: Education and Our Docent Corps
13 A New Way of Seeing: Touch Tours for the Vision Impaired
20 In Memoriam: Michele Ward Franklin Ann Dearsley Vernon
21 Community Service, Community Fun
22 Jean Outland Chrysler Library News
23 At the Perry Glass Studio
24 Good News for Donors
24 Norfolk Society of Arts Lectures
member exclusives and special events
25 Art Travel Opportunities
26 A Look Back at Member Events
27 Don’t-Miss Events for Members
last look
28 A Season of Water
back cover
Camp Chrysler
The Members’ Magazine | Spring 2016
Chrysler
Visiting Artist Series 2016at the Perry Glass StudioRik Allen (American, b. 1967)Night Walk, 2015Blown glass, silver and steelImage by KP Studios, courtesy of the artist
Docent-led Touch Tours
Phot
o by E
d Poll
ard,
Mus
eum
Phot
ogra
pher
Members’ Exhibition Opening for Edward Burtynsky: Water
Phot
o by C
harli
e Gun
ter f
or th
e Chr
ysler
Mus
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of Ar
t
2 | spring 2016
Edward Burtynsky: Water
Closing May 15, 2016 in the Norfolk Southern Special Exhibitions Gallery (Gs. 101–103)Water is so present in our lives that it can be a challenge to comprehend all that it means. In this keynote exhibition, Canadian artist Edward Burtynsky provides a compelling global perspective on this essential resource and humanity’s complex connections to it. More than 60 expansive color photographs—some elegant, some haunting—hover between the worlds of painting, photography, detail and abstraction. Together, they weave an ambitious representation of water’s ever-more-fragmented lifecycle, raising questions about our increasingly stressed relationship with our most vital natural resource.
Exhibitions
Edward Burtynsky (Canadian, b. 1955) Xiaolangdi Dam #1, Yellow River, Henan Province, China, 2011Digital chromogenic print, 60 x 80 inches© Edward Burtynsky Image courtesy of Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto; Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York; and Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery, New York
Norwood Viviano (American, b. 1972)Installation detail of Cities ofPhiladelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, and San Franciscofrom the series Cities: Departureand Deviation, 2011Blown glass and vinyl cut drawingsInstallation photo by Ed Pollard,Museum Photographer
Edward Burtynsky: Water is organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art.
Edward Burtynsky’s exhibition is but one of several water-themed programs across Hampton Roads this season. Check out more of the offerings in this issue’s Last Look on page 29.
Norwood Viviano—Cities: Departure and Deviation
Ongoing in the Glass Project Space (G. 118)Precisely blown glass forms in gradating shades of white, gray, and black tell the centuries-old stories of urban growth, suburban flight, and the rise and fall of industrial influence in this data-driven exhibition. Norwood Viviano transforms population statistics for 25 American cities into 3-D graphs that serve as a starting point for conversations touching on commerce, race, technology, culture, sustainability, and change. The artist created the glass graph of Norfolk specifically for exhibition at the Chrysler.
Norwood Viviano—Cities: Departure and Deviation is on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Norfolk addition is on loan from the artist and Heller Gallery, New York.
in the galleries | 3
Kota Ezawa (German, b. 1969) Earth from Moon, 2005Single-channel HD video, 3 mins., 54 secs.© Kota EzawaImage courtesy of Murray Guy, New York
Tony Oursler (American, b. 1957) TC: The Most Interesting Man Alive, 2016Photographic still from movie installation© Tony OurslerImage courtesy of Oursler Studio, New York
In The Box: Kota Ezawa
Extended through April 10 in The BoxReimagine the familiar as our new-media gallery features the San Francisco artist known for his animated audiovisual mash-ups of popular culture and art history. Enjoy his lightbox take on the iconic Earth From Moon, as well as two recent video works. City of Nature presents unpopulated nature scenes from more than 20 feature films in paint-by-number-kit style, while Beatles über California remixes footage of the Fab Four’s 1964 Ed Sullivan Show appearance with a 1979 punk soundtrack by Dead Kennedys.
The artist’s In The Box exhibition works are on loan from Murray Guy, New York.
Kota Ezawa has more to say about his art at the Chrysler. Learn more in this issue’s Spotlight Exhibition story on pages 6–7.
In The Box: Tony Oursler
Opening the evening of Third Thursday, April 21 in The BoxTwo of the world’s most influential avant-garde artists join forces as the Chrysler debuts their new collaboration. Tony Oursler, renowned for his imaginative multimedia art and installations, presents the international premier of TC: The Most Interesting Man Alive. His short movie focuses on Tony Conrad, legendary conceptual artist, filmmaking innovator, minimalist composer, and educator. This improvisational biopic presents how Conrad became an artistic tour de force and explores how personal histories become the building blocks of creative possibilities. This project between two longtime friends promises an unforgettable experience in experimentation.
Meet and Greet / Artist Talk with Tony Oursler
Third Thursday, April 21Free for Museum Members and students with current ID, $5 for all others
TC: The Most Interesting Man Alive, a movie by Tony Oursler in collaboration with Tony Conrad, and its related installation works in The Box are on loan from Lehmann Maupin, New York.
Beyond the Tangible: The Roots of Abstraction in American Art
On view in the Roberts Wing | 20th-Century Art Gallery (G. 222)Our Modernist art gallery is reinstalled with 15 masterworks by artists on the forefront of the American avant garde: Charles Sheeler, Georgia O’Keeffe, Joseph Stella, Niles Spencer, and Stuart Davis, to name a few. Their quest was, as Arshile Gorky said, “to extract the infinite out of the finite.” Explore the blend of vision, imagination, and symbolism that they present as they experiment with flatness, color, and rhythm—and blur the lines between representation and a radical new way of seeing.
Oscar Bluemner(American, 1867–1938)Red Green in Grey, 1934Oil on boardGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
4 | spring 2016
A Moveable Feast: A Reconfiguration of Contemporary Art
On view in the McKinnon Wing of Contemporary Art (Gs. 223–227)The Chrysler takes advantage of the Museum’s modular wall system with the first major reinstallation of our 20th- and 21st-century art since our reopening in 2014. Sprawling canvases, imaginative sculpture, and other popular favorites return to the galleries as we reimagine our expansive wing for contemporary art. Many of the works show the unique collecting tastes and insider dealer relationships of the Museum’s key benefactor, Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. Collection standouts by Larry Poons, Nam Jun Paik, Barkley Hendricks, and Idelle Weber headline this new display.
Robert Glenn Ketchum (American, b. 1947)Jedediah, After The Rain, ca. 1978 Cibachrome print, from the portfolio American Photographs in the National Parks Gift of Jack B. Ketchum© Robert Glenn Ketchum
Willoughby-Baylor House601 E. Freemason St., Norfolk
Harry C. Mann: Norfolk PhotographerOpening April 16 | First floorDiscover the pioneering photographic work of Harry Cowles Mann (1866–1926). Between 1907 and 1924, Mann’s camera documented the bustling commercial life of Granby Street and downtown Norfolk. Featuring 50 vintage prints from the Chrysler Collection, this exhibition also presents his experiments in capturing waves, clouds, and shadows on the sand dunes of Virginia Beach, evidence of his powerful but unsung artistic ambitions.
The Norfolk Rooms Ongoing | Second floor in the Norfolk History Museum
Moses Myers House323 E. Freemason St., Norfolk
Moses Myers: Maritime MerchantBarton Myers: Norfolk VisionaryAdeline’s Portal by Beth Lipman
AT THE HISTORIC HOUSES
Harry Cowles Mann (American, 1866–1926) Cape Henry Lighthouse, ca. 1918Gelatin silver print on texturized paperAnonymous
William Trost Richards(American, 1833–1905)Seascape, ca. 1890sOil on millboardGift of Edith Ballinger Price
New Light on Land: Photographs from the Chrysler Collection
Closing May 15 in the Frank Photography Galleries (G. 228)Whether pastoral or polluted, the landscape has been an enduring subject in the history of photography. New Light on Land draws from the Museum’s rich photography collection to explore how nature has inspired photographic innovation and creativity since the advent of the medium. Presented as a companion to Edward Burtynsky: Water, this exhibition offers eclectic perspectives from environmentalist critiques to grand visions of the untrammeled earth.
Different eyes see different things. Five Chrysler Museum staff members share their insights on these landscape photos in our Collection Connection highlight on pages 8–10.
Seascapes by William Trost Richards
Closing May 1 in the Focus Gallery (G. 229)In the 1870s, William Trost Richards (1833–1905) discovered the beauty of the ocean. Over the next three decades, he visited and painted some of the finest beaches and most dramatic rocky coastlines of New England and Europe. Thanks to a generous gift from the painter’s granddaughter, the Chrysler Collection includes scores of oils, watercolors, and drawings by this master landscape painter. Trace Richards’ working process from sketchbook pages to finished canvases and experience a diverse selection of seascapes, including recently conserved paintings on display for the first time.
Nam June Paik(American, b. South Korea, 1932–2006)Hamlet Robot, 1996Video installationMuseum purchase and gift of Joan Dalis Martone,Fran and Lenox Baker, Mr. and Mrs. Macon F. Brock, Jr., Susan and Paul Hirschbiel, Renée and Paul Mansheim, and Robert McLanahan Smith III© Estate of Nam June Paik
Franz Kline’s Hot Jazz is helping Germans explore the intertwining influence of American jazz on poetry, music, and the visual arts throughout Europe and America. I Got Rhythm: Jazz and Art Since 1920 is on view at Kunstmuseum Stuttgart through March 6.
Five historic albumen prints from our acclaimed collection of Civil War photos are featured in the Alexander Gardner: The War and the West in Washington, D.C. The exhibition is the Smithsonian’s first major retrospective of the photographer’s work and the finale of the National Portrait Gallery’s seven-part series commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. The show closes March 13.
Our swirling Number 23, 1951 is one of an unprecedented 31 black paintings featured in Jackson Pollock: Blind Spots. On view at England’s Tate Liverpool for much of 2015, the popular show includes 70 of the great abstract expressionist’s works. The exhibition is at Dallas Museum of Art now until March 20.
Our Edward Hicks’ Scene from “The Tempest” goes on loan
to the Baron and Ellin Gordon Art Galleries at Old Dominion University in April. The ca. 1825 canvas will be featured in Shakespeare and the Americas: A Look Back to the World of
“The Tempest.” The exhibition celebrating the Bard 400 years after his death is on view through September 25.
It’s an unusual German-themed work for French artist Henri Fantin-Latour, but The Rhinemaidens is in the spotlight in Wagner’s Ring: Forging an Epic. The ca. 1880 oil painting really sings thanks to a recent restoration by our Conservation Team. The musically themed exhibition is at Engelhard Gallery of The Morgan Library & Museum in New York until April 17.
Our St. Andrew makes its West Coast debut as Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic moves from Fort Worth to Seattle. The acclaimed exhibition returns East for a culminating run at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond from June 3–September 5. After that, our key accession of 2014 comes home to the Chrysler to grace
our McKinnon Wing of Modern and Contemporary Art.
The Bath is still on view in Gallery 216, but won’t be for long. The charming 1868 oil painting goes to Paris later this spring for Charles Gleyre (1806-1874): The Repentant Romantic. France’s first solo show of the artist’s work runs at Musée d’Orsay May 9–September 11.
Charles-Francois Daubigny headlines the traveling exhibition Daubigny, Monet, Van Gogh. Our 1873 oil painting, The Beach at Villerville at Sunset, is at the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati through May 29, then the show crosses the Atlantic for engagements at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Saint Philip by Georges de la Tour blesses Museo Nacional del Prado with its presence in a key international exhibition. Our ca. 1625 masterwork is one of 30 paintings by the long-forgotten artist, perhaps the most important French painter of the 17th century, now on view in Madrid, Spain, through June 12.
Tseng Kwong Chi: Performing for the Camera, here at the Chrysler last summer and fall, continues its successful run. Now at Tufts University Art Gallery (through May 22), the exhibition moves to the Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, September 17–December 11. The Chrysler has three photos in the show: National Grassland, South Dakota; Niagara Falls, New York; and The Shrine of Democracy: Mount Rushmore, Black Hills, South Dakota.
For images of other Chrysler Collection art on the road, see our #ChryslerMuseumTravels posts at instagram.com/chryslermuseum.
in the galleries | 5
On the Road Here and ThereChrysler Loans in the Spotlight
|
Art from the Chrysler
Collection is always
in demand for special
exhibitions across the
country and around the
world. If you’ll be traveling,
you may see these
favorite works on loan
to other museums.
From the Road: Loans Amid Our Collection
In addition to lending our own works, the Chrysler Museum also benefits from loans from art collectors who are friends of the Museum. On your next visit, look for these and many other fine artworks on loan to us.
McKinnon Wing of Modern and Contemporary ArtStanislav LibenskýJaroslava BrychtováGreen Eye of the PyramidPromised gift of Lisa and Dudley Anderson
Joan P. Brock GalleriesÉrardNapoleon III Ormolu-Mounted Satinwood and Parquetry Grand PianoLent by the Norfolk Education Foundation
Winslow HomerGirl with a Four-Leaf CloverPromised gift of Mrs. Frank Batten
Frank Photography Galleries, in New Light on LandSally MannUntitledLent by Lelia Graham and Randy Webb
Tung HingScene from Foo Chow, ChinaLent by Susan and Paul Hirschbiel
Waitzer Galleries of GlassGeorge WoodallCameo Plaque(Girl Carrying Fruit)Lent by James and Rebecca Summar
Joel Philip MyersDr. Zharkov’s Gold OneLent by Carolyn and Dick Barry
Jackson Pollock (American, 1912–1956)Number 23, 1951, 1951Enamel on canvasGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.© The Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society, New York
Stanislav Libenský(Czech, 1921–2002)Jaroslava Brychtová(Czech, b. 1924)Green Eye of the Pyramid, 1933–97 Cast glassPromised gift of Lisa Shaffer Anderson and Dudley Buist Anderson© Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová
6 | spring 2016
If you haven’t yet seen our
current show in The Box,
our new-media and video
gallery, you’re in luck.
Kota Ezawa’s exhibition
at the Chrysler has been
extended until April 10.
Chrysler asked Seth Feman,
our Curator of Exhibitions
and Acting Curator of
Photography, to talk
with the acclaimed artist
about how his imaginative
works have such
universal resonance.
seth feman: How did the works now on view at the Chrysler become your exhibition here?
kota ezawa: The idea to show these three works together in The Box came out of a conversation between Janice Guy, my gallerist in New York, Chrysler Museum Director Erik Neil, and me. I really appreciate the collaborative aspect of exhibition-making. This makes every show unique.
Earth from Moon (2005) is a drawing from my ongoing series The History of Photography Remix. Prior to this series, almost all my work was in video form. A lightbox looks a lot like a TV, but it only shows a single image. As a video artist this gave me a natural entry to this format. My drawing is a remake of the famous photograph taken by an Apollo 11 astronaut gazing at the Earth from space. It’s said that this photograph started the environmental movement.
City of Nature (2011) is an animation based on 40 nature scenes from narrative films, including The Old Man and the Sea, Fitzcarraldo, Swept Away, Brokeback Mountain, and many others. The animation was constructed in a way that one scene leads to the next—a creek leads to a river, which leads to an ocean, which leads to a shark. You could say that this piece functions like a cinematic chain reaction.
And Beatles Über California (2011) is a mash-up. I re-animated the Beatles’ 1964 performance on the Ed Sullivan Show with the Dead Kennedys’ famous 1979 punk anthem “California Über Alles.” It surprised me how easy it was to sync up the existing images with the newer music. Image and sound are two very different experiences, but they naturally form a pact. You can almost pair any sound with any image—but some combinations are more powerful than others.
sf: You’ve described your process of transforming photographs and film into animation as “just like translating a text into English from Chinese.” Would you elaborate on this and on how you select and create your imagery?
ke: Since my work starts with an existing film or photograph, there is a relationship to a source material. It’s similar to a translated text that has its roots in an original. I also like to compare my work to the job of a translator because I try to bring across the essence of an image, just as a translator attempts to preserve the character of a text.
Another parallel is that making art for me is really work. I’m not just sitting around in my studio with a glass of wine, waiting for inspiration to hit. As in translating, there is a lot of tediousness and meticulousness required.
But this is only one aspect of what I do. The other portion I could describe as a form of visual DJing. It involves a lot of cutting and editing, all with the purpose of initiating a conversation with the viewer. It’s much like the way a DJ tries to animate the dance floor. I pick the subject and source material for my work very quickly and intuitively. I trust my initial ideas more than those that come out of long contemplation. But the actual creation of the work involves a slow and meditative process—hours and hours with a drawing tablet in front of a computer or with a paintbrush on a piece of paper.
sf: Maybe it’s the bright colors or cartoonlike animation, but City of Nature has been especially popular with children. Adult visitors often try to connect the animated clips to the source movies, but children don’t care about the origins. Many of your works draw on memory and nostalgia, but is there a value in seeing your work with fresh eyes?
Out-of-the-Box Artin The BoxKota Ezawa
|
spotlight exhibition | 7
facing pageKota Ezawa (German, b. 1969)Self-Portrait, from The History of Photography Remix, 2006© Kota Ezawa
aboveKota Ezawa (German, b. 1969) Beatles über California, 2011Still from black and white video with sound© Kota Ezawa
Kota Ezawa (German, b. 1969) Video still from City of Nature, 2011Single-channel HD video, 3 mins., 54 secs.© Kota Ezawa
Images courtesy of Murray Guy, New York
ke: In other works of mine, like The Simpson Verdict, people experience a kind of ghost effect. They see the shadow of their own memory of an image that’s in my work. Though City of Nature samples many well-known films, the references are more obscure. Nature is less recognizable than a human face or an iconic building, so that ghost effect is less noticeable. City of Nature addresses viewers in an almost purely experiential way. This might explain why children are drawn to it.
Subject matter is only one thing I consider when making the work. I hope that viewers can access the work from different directions. I’ve heard people say that they like the way I draw eyes and noses. To me, this comment is just as meaningful as a comment about the content of the work.
sf: It’s hard for me to watch the grazing sheep in City of Nature without laughing, but there’s something a little audacious in the work. What place do humor or irreverence have in your work?
ke: The German artist Martin Kippenberger once said that whoever is serious is lying. I kind of see it the same way. What you call “irreverence” might be the residue of my punk rock upbringing. Even though my work looks almost like graphic design, it borrows a lot from the attitudes and strategies of punk musicians and artists of the era. One of the big accomplishments of punk was that it brought culture to eye level. Musicians jumped off the stage and became a part of the crowd.
My visual style is often referred to as “paint-by-numbers,” something usually associated with the work of hobbyists and bored teenagers. To me this is almost a compliment. Making “paint-by-numbers” art might be comparable to writing songs that only use three chords, which is what a lot of punk bands did in the ’70s.
sf: During your talk here last fall, you showed Beatles über California. When you described über alles, a term often associated with the Nazis, you said, “For a German person, it almost doesn’t go over the lips. It’s a very distasteful title, but it just worked well for the piece.”
Then you said you showed the work in Moscow not long after members of the punk band Pussy Riot were arrested for disorderly conduct, which many in the international community saw as the Kremlin cracking down on free speech. It’s hard to see your Dead Kennedys’ song as an accidental choice. What is the role of politics in your work?
ke: Any work that influences the thinking of the viewer is political, in my opinion. It is not necessary that the work carry a specific political message. Just by having an impact, art can change the course of events. Consider the work
of Robert Mapplethorpe or Karen Finley. Although their art doesn't necessarily have any activist agenda, it has had huge reverberations in American society.
If my work is “political,” I would consider this a compliment. Of course, it is my wish to move the thoughts and feelings of the viewer, but I also realize that this is a difficult and complicated task. The German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt once remarked that beauty is political. I can totally relate. Without beauty in our lives, we wouldn't have anything to fight for.
Beatles Über California may be one of my more political pieces. People spontaneously applauded when it was screened in public in Miami and Moscow. It is also my only video that you can easily find online—30,000 people have watched it so far. That may make it the most democratic work I have created.
sf: What new projects are you are developing? What can we look forward to seeing in the future?
ke: I just debuted Gardner Museum Revisited at Murray Guy in New York, and it is currently on view at Christopher Grimes Gallery in L.A. In this new work, I recreated the 13 artworks stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990. Along with the color lightboxes, I present an animation based on the surveillance footage recorded the night before the theft at the museum. The tape was recently released by the FBI. The response to this work has been quite strong, and I might add more elements to it for future exhibitions.
I am also working on a new animation with James Rogers, who is a dancer with Houston Ballet. The project is still in the beginning stages, but I am excited to have my first collaboration with a performing artist. The project will open at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco at the end of July.
sf: Thanks for giving us this in-depth view of your art, Kota. Understanding you and your process will help us appreciate your upcoming projects even more.
8 | spring 2016
Ten Eyes on New Light on Land
|
Chrysler asked several
Museum staff members
with an affinity for
photography to
select an interesting
image from our new
exhibition of landscape
photography from the
Chrysler Collection.
Enjoy seeing these
photos from their
different viewpoints.
the photogr aphs in n e w lig ht o n l an d tell many surprising stories, often because what you see is only a half-truth.
This image of a couple looking out over Niagara Falls from Prospect Point suggests that they are communing with transcendent nature, and they almost certainly were. The Catholic Church recognized the falls as a “pilgrim shrine” in 1861, and faithful tourists travelled from far and wide to take in the beauty and glory of God’s earth.
The photographer Platt D. Babbitt, often hiding his camera in a pavilion overlooking this site, would make photographs of unwitting tourists, later approaching them with their image in hand and offering it for sale. So there’s one truth—a couple, possibly unaware of the camera, is having a candid moment with nature.
But there’s another truth you can’t exactly see—Babbitt was a clever and sometimes cunning businessman. Fiercely competitive, he was known to have aggressively defended this vantage from other photographers. There even are reports of him running out with an open umbrella to disrupt their work. I imagine there are photos out there capturing that truth, but I haven’t seen one yet.
—Seth Feman, Acting Curator of Photography and Curator of Exhibitions
there’s a fleeting urgenc y to l andsc ape photography—and it’s keenly felt in O. Winston Link’s Creek Junction, Bridge 52. The train races by on the bridge and track built over the river, framed by trees that engulf it on either side. Shadows seem to dance playfully along the bottom half of the photograph before they yield to an uncluttered, open sky above. The choice to create this image in this orientation, more as a portrait than a landscape, shows that his subject truly is the steam train.
It’s clear that Link was meticulous in setting up the picture, finding the right angle at the right time of day, and then patiently waiting for the train. A careful composition can change in an instant with a cloud passing overhead, a bird circling back around, or a train charging through the scene. After such deliberate preparation, he would have had only a few seconds to get the arrangement he wanted. If something had gone wrong, if he’d snapped the photograph too late, for instance, he would have to wait again for another train to come by in an ever-changing landscape.
As a photographer myself, I know that feeling. Sometimes a beautiful moment will come and go, and the chance to get that image is gone forever. That’s something that’s mirrored in Link’s
collection connection | 9
attempts to immortalize the disappearing world of steam trains. This photograph, to me, seems to be a collision of multiple worlds—the serene old landscape with a modern bustling train, the patience of setting up the composition with the urgency of capturing the photograph at just the right instant, and the disappearing world of steam trains being replaced by diesel. Thankfully, Link captured an amazing moment in time before this era came to an end.
—Christine Gamache, Senior Visitor Services Representative
i always gr avitate to the photogr aphs that seem casual or deadpan, but have a layer of humor or subtlety underneath. Route 64 epitomizes a style of photography that has this compelling dual component. At first glance the images seem objective, a documentary mirror of what is in front of the lens. But they also hold the opposite possibility, a subjective view of the scene that expresses the feelings of the photographer. David Graham’s image may be about the land, preservation, or nature as real estate—and it doesn’t matter to me that his intent is unclear.
Threads to past work and influences weave in and out of photo history, and Graham’s work has
a lineage to the New Topographics. This stylistic approach to landscape photography stripped away all artistic frills and often focused on human occupation of the land, with all of its uses and all of its industrial and domestic structures.
This style had an incredible moment in 1975 when the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House put on the exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape. Its 10 photographers presented a combination of natural and built scenes that wrested supremacy from the convention of romantic landscape photography. They decided to face the environment we’ve made for ourselves and depict what they saw. Their work said that the genre á la Ansel Adams, with nature as the center of attention and without any sign of human intrusion, wasn’t enough. Crucial to them was the way people associate with their world. All places matter—not just vast vistas of the largely untouched, natural world, but also less striking places that too easily go unnoticed. All places deserve our attention.
While radical in 1975, photographers like Robert Adams, Stephen Shore, and Lewis Baltz themselves had links weaving back to Walker Evans’ 1930s work and 19th-century survey photography of the American West. And their
facing pageAttributed to Platt D. Babbitt (American, 1823–1879)A Honeymoon Couple, Niagara Falls, ca. 1860Ambrotype Gift of Dr. Robert W. Lisle, M.D.
O. Winston Link(American, 1914–2001)Creek Junction, Bridge 52, 1956Gelatin silver print Lent by David and Susan Goode, with intent to give
aboveDavid Graham (American, b. 1952)Route 64, West of Route 89, Arizona, 1986Chromogenic printGift of Joyce F. and Robert B. Menschel
10 | spring 2016
impact continues today with the narrative in the landscape form found in the work of Alec Soth, Mark Ruwedel, and European exponents of the Düsseldorf School like Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, and Thomas Struth. In my personal work, it’s obvious that I've absorbed this strain of photography.
—Ed Pollard, Museum Photographer
fr ancis frith’s tours of egyp t and the Middle East were the most ambitious and systematic photographic undertakings of the region in the 19th century. Beginning in 1857, Frith presented to the public more than 500 images in eight published works. A retired grocer and devout Quaker, he brought a religious zeal to his efforts. Considering the difficult conditions in the desert, with dust and extreme heat affecting the delicate process of developing a wet plate collodion negative, extraordinary determination was required to produce such an extensive body of work.
Frith had experienced a religious epiphany as a young man, and his quest to portray the Holy Land and the places mentioned in the Bible through photography can be directly linked to his beliefs. Though the biblical or historical import of a site guided many of his selections, he also sought to realize a profitable enterprise. In some cases, he chose to photograph a certain place because “the scriptural interest in the locality is so great.” In these choices he was following itineraries established by the writers of guide books and travel memoirs of the Middle East—as well as feeding the appetites of his devout Victorian-era audiences. His view of the Temple of El Karnak near Thebes is at once a careful composition of spectacular ancient ruins and a very marketable recollection of the fallen glory of the pharaohs.
—Erik Neil, Museum Director
the farm securit y administration, created in 1935 to raise awareness of rural poverty during the Depression, produced some of the greatest documentary photographers in history. The work of these artists inspired me to pursue a career in photojournalism, which I have always believed, in its purest sense, combined art and journalism.
I wanted to be just like them and, as Cliff Edom, legendary photojournalism educator, said, “Show the truth with a camera.” So I studied their work and tried to emulate their grace and truthful style.
Dorothea Lange, whose photograph Migrant Mother is one of the most famous images of all
Francis Frith (English, 1822–1898)The Temple of El Karnak, from the South East, 1857,from Egypt, Sinai, and Jerusalem, 1858Mammoth albumen print in original mount Museum purchase
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895–1965) Men Cradling Wheat, Near Sperryville, Virginia, June 1936 Gelatin-silver print Museum purchase, Horace W. Goldsmith Fund
time, had a way of bestowing honor and dignity on the impoverished people she was charged with documenting. In Men Cradling Wheat, Near Sperryville, Virginia, two men go about their daily task, paying little attention to the overwhelming natural surroundings that seem to be closing in on them. Their body language suggests resignation. They are front and center in the frame, but look small compared to the landscape. The viewer can almost see the men moving slowly, listlessly to complete their work, wondering if it really matters.
But the photograph also captures a measure of pride in these men. The eye keeps going to the tiny hole in the man’s shirt. Is it a meaningless detail or a metaphor for the tear in the country’s social fabric? I don’t believe Lange’s compassionate eye ignored symbolism. This beautifully evocative photograph challenges the viewer to empathize with those suffering during the Great Depression and who have been treated cruelly by fate and the natural world. That was the noble goal of the FSA project, to
“introduce America to Americans.” And I imagine Lange saying to the viewer, “Romanticize this photograph at your own risk.”
—Denis Finley, Director of Communications
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Educating Our Educators Docents Love Ongoing Training
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One of the most dedicated groups at the Chrysler Museum of Art is its Docent Corps. More than 75 individuals bring our
educational mission to life for school students and groups of visitors. Docents give tours to 12,000 students each year, facilitate art projects during our Family Days and weekend activities, and give free public gallery tours at 1 p.m. every day that the Museum is open. All in all, between training sessions, meetings, outreaches, and tours, our docents contribute about 2,500 hours of volunteer service each year.
But if you ask any one of them why they invest so much time in the Chrysler, each one will give the same answer—they love exciting people about art and they love learning.
And they are always learning. In this past year alone, our docents participated in a myriad of continuing educational opportunities. Much of their expert training focused on special exhibitions and new art acquisitions at the Chrysler. For Georgia O’Keeffe: A Place of Her Own, Brock Curator of American Art Alex Mann gave them an insider’s view of the groundbreaking artist and her work. Laura Garrity-Arquitt from the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, Massachusetts, prepared docents and staff for the
intricacies of the content-rich exhibition Saints and Dragons: Icons from Byzantium to Russia. Barry Curator of Glass Diane Wright presented deep background on several of the Museum’s recent acquisitions in glass, including a philosophically inspired new accession by renowned Danish artist Steffen Dam. In preparation for Tseng Kwong Chi: Performing for the Camera, our docents had not only a private tour from Manager of Interpretation Seth Feman, but a chance to hear personal reflections from the late artist’s sister, Muna Tseng.
The Chrysler’s docents also are quick to take the opportunity to share their individual collection expertise and teacher-training strengths with fellow docents. Randy McDaniel and Betsy Browne offered a four-week class on Greco-Roman Mythology in which participants researched, wrote, and gave presentations in front of their classmates. And monthly, shorter, more informal sessions take place. In recent Lunch and Learn sessions, Jean Gulick gave a talk on Art Nouveau art and furniture; Barbara Gornto and Garnett Shores talked about costumes and fashion in art; and Virginia Kitchin shared her love of modern and contemporary art.
Two docents took training a step further and provided sessions for the Museum’s Visitor
Powers Peterson, M.D. (right), helps Chrysler Museum docents Richard Brown and Pat Behlmer, also physicians themselves, todiagnose ailments and illnesses in paintings throughout the Chrysler Collection.
In Briton Rivière’s War Time, a faithful dog looks out for his teary-eyed master, glasses in hand after reading about the death of his son in battle. The sheepherder’s slumped posture conveys an empty sadness typical of clinical depression.
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It’s hard to miss The Lunatic of Étretat’s deranged behavior. In Hugues Merle’s painting, a barefoot, disturbed woman sits beside a well, swaddling a log instead of a baby. Her defiant eyes telegraph withdrawal, anger, and distrust of the outside world—all classic signs of paranoid schizophrenia.
Though Gustave Doré’s clear-eyed Neophyte is having an epiphany with his first experience of the monastery, the visual acuity of his spiritual brothers seems more clouded. The older monks to the left exhibit signs of cataracts and myopia (nearsightedness). Whether the bearded devotee to the right is deep in prayer, narcoleptic, bored, or drifting off to sleep is debatable.
Many viewers notice that Joseph Noel Paton’s soldier returning Home has lost an arm in war, but few look closely to see that his mother’s gnarled hand on his shoulder is wracked with rheumatoid arthritis, one of the most common auto-immune disorders among the elderly.
Services staff. Richard Brown led Gallery Hosts through the masks and mystique of our African Gallery, sharing his experiences of nearly three decades of practicing medicine in Africa. Gayle Nichols, who also works as a Gallery Teacher at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art near the beachfront, helped the Gallery Hosts practice Visual Thinking Strategies, a technique for fostering dialogue within groups, particularly with students.
To enhance the docents’ learning opportunities, the Museum also brought in several guest lecturers and facilitators on special topics. Powers Peterson, M.D., created a customized workshop for docents that drew on her expertise as a physician and a clinical pathologist. The Artist’s Vision: Interactions of Illness and Art encouraged them to look for medical conditions portrayed in works of art or experienced by the artists themselves. Virginia Lamneck, Program Director at Equality Virginia, presented Creating an Inclusive Museum: Welcoming LGBT Students and Visitors. Finally Betsy Bowers, Director of the Center for Innovation in Early Learning at the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center, led a full-day training session on how to keep toddlers and preschool children engaged in the Museum’s galleries.
This kind of enrichment not only prepares, but energizes our Docent Corps to do serve even more effectively. “When I gave my first SAPLINGS tour, things fell flat. Despite all my preparation, the first-graders just weren’t very interested,” docent Joan Nesbitt confessed. “But the Engaging Young Children training session made all the difference. I put what I learned into practice and the results were amazing!” It’s a refrain heard regularly among these die-hard volunteers. Docent Pat Behlmer, a retired neurologist, felt the same way about The Artist’s Vision. “The training was a great way to pair my medical experience with my love of the Museum. Now I have brand new ways to look at art.”
Becoming a Chrysler docent is a great opportunity to learn, to meet new people, and to give back to your community by sharing your love of art. The Education Department will start recruiting for a new class of docents to begin training in Fall 2016. For an application or more details, contact Ruth Sanchez at [email protected].
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How do you make the visual arts accessible to everyone—especially to Museum guests who are blind? You look for a different
kind of vision. Director of Education Anne Corso recently sat down with longtime Museum docent Gray Puryear to discuss one creative way that our docents can help visually challenged guests to “see” the Chrysler Collection.
anne corso: Gray, you’ve been a docent for 11 years now and have given hundreds of tours to both adults and children. Some people might be surprised to know that we offer special tours for visitors with visual impairments.
gray puryear: If a visitor doesn’t have sight or has limited visual abilities, we can offer them a touch tour. It’s an alternate experience where they can wear protective gloves and feel works of art that have been preselected by our conservator. On a tour, a docent will guide participants by describing the art to them, then allowing them to experience the works by touch.
ac: How many touch tours have you given?
gp: I’ve probably given about a half a dozen tours to people with visual impairments. Typically I’ve led adult groups on touch tours. They are always talkative and inquisitive. They understand that they are having a very special experience.
ac: Just a few days ago, you “showed” our collection to a fourth-grader who is visually impaired. When you and Grace toured the galleries, what was her experience?
gp: Grace has never had sight, and not surprisingly she had never been able to touch art in a museum. As I led her to several objects, including the Egyptian Sekhmet and the Roman sarcophagus, she was very quiet and contemplative. She took her time really “seeing” each piece. Ironically, she spent more time with each work than most sighted visitors do.
ac: Did Grace have a favorite?
gp: I’d say yes. She absolutely spent the most time with Elizabeth Catlett’s Ife. It’s such a beautiful piece: so tactile and so engaging. I was really honored that I could help Grace experience it.
ac: Gray, do you have any words of wisdom for docents who might want to try giving a touch tour, but are nervous to do so?
gp: While I have been through training on how to give a touch tour, it’s not the kind of thing that you have to get certified to do. There’s really no right or wrong way to lead it. The most important thing is that you have a passion for the art—and a passion for helping people to see it in a new way.
A New Way of SeeingDocent Touch Tours
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To arrange a docent-led
touch tour of the Museum
galleries, please contact
Ruth Sanchez in our
Education Department at
Phot
o by E
d Poll
ard,
Mus
eum
Phot
ogra
pher
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The Collection GrowsNew Acquisitions of Note
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Images by Ed Pollard, Museum Photographer
Alvar Aalto, designer(Finnish, 1898–1976)Karhula-Iittala, manufacturerHämeenlinna, FinlandAalto, or “Savoy,” Vase, 1937 Mold-blown glassMuseum purchase
Peter Halley(American, b. 1953)Divide, 2011Fluorescent acrylic, metallic acrylic, pearlescent acrylic, and Roll-a-Tex on two attached canvasesGift of the artist in memory of Amy L. Brandt (1978–2015), the McKinnon Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Chrysler Museum of Art, 2011–2015© Peter Halley 2011
Artist Peter Halley donated Divide as a tribute to the life and work of our curatorial colleague Amy Brandt after learning of her passing. Halley met Brandt in 2009 when she began researching her dissertation on New York’s East Village art scene in the 1980s. Her study broke new ground by exploring how artists like Halley adapted past visual styles to address contemporary concerns. When MIT Press published her research in 2014 as Interplay: Neoconceptual Art of the 1980s, Halley’s work illustrated the cover. His paintings, with their geometric cells, networking conduits, and contained spaces, evoke the modern experience of physical isolation and control, though their rough, plump textures and Day-Glo colors suggest the euphoria and hyper-exuberance that is also a part of modern life.
Architect-designer Alvar Aalto applied the same curved forms seen in his architecture and furniture to his best-known work in glass, the Savoy or Aalto Vase. Part of a submission for a glass competition held by Karhula-Iittala in 1936, this vase was displayed in the Finnish national pavilions also designed by Aalto at world’s fairs in Paris (1937) and New York (1939). In 1937, this model decorated the luxury Savoy Restaurant in Helsinki, giving the vase its nickname. Recalling the rounded shapes of the islands and lakes of Aalto’s native Finland, the Savoy is an iconic example of Scandinavian modern design, and is still produced today in a variety of sizes and colors.
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Tseng Kwong Chi(American, b. Hong Kong, 1950–1990)Cape Canaveral, 1985 Gelatin silver print, printed 1995Gift of Carlos H. Schenck, M.D.© Muna Tseng Dance Projects, Inc., New York
Lotte Jacobi(American, 1896–1990)Woman with Veil, ca. 1935Platinum printMuseum purchase© Lotte Jacobi Estate
Charles Schreyvogel (American, 1861–1912)The Last Drop, 1903Bronze cast by Roman Bronze Works, Brooklyn, N.Y., cast no. 75 Gift of the Masterpiece Society, 2015
The Chrysler crosses new frontiers with the acquisition of its first Western bronze, the selection of the Masterpiece Society at the 2015 Art Purchase Dinner. Modeled from life in 1903 by American sculptor and painter Charles Schreyvogel, The Last Drop depicts a brave cavalry officer sharing water from his canteen with his horse during a harsh trek through the deserts of the Wild West. In mint condition, this work shows the extraordinary level of detail possible with the lost-wax method, a technique of bronze casting newly introduced to America at the turn of the 20th century. The sculpture will be a centerpiece of the major traveling exhibition Branding the American West, our Fall 2016 keynote exhibition, opening this October.
A rare vintage platinum print is the first work by esteemed photographer Lotte Jacobi to enter the Chrysler’s collection. Before Hitler’s atrocities forced her immigration to America in 1935, Jacobi ran a portrait studio in Berlin, following in the footsteps of her photographer father and grandfather. This haunting image shows only a pair of eyes behind a web of black lace. The subject may be one of the artist’s friends from Berlin’s vibrant theater and cabaret scene, whose dramatic lighting, costumes, and poses inspired her to experiment with high contrast and unconventional framing. With the purchase of this work and a 1951 photo by Ruth Orkin, the Museum is steadily building its holdings by female photographers.
After organizing the first major museum retrospective of Tseng Kwong Chi’s work in 2015, the Chrysler received a remarkable gift of seven prints by the photographer/performance artist. Taking on the persona of “the ambiguous ambassador” in a Mao suit, Tseng traveled to iconic tourist sites and posed for carefully composed photographs. His images play with perceptions about racial and cultural identity. The donor, a collector in Minneapolis, learned about the Chrysler from Muna Tseng, the artist’s sister and manager of his estate. Muna Tseng had worked closely with Amy Brandt, our late curator of modern and contemporary art, and was a major lender to the exhibition. With this generous donation, the Chrysler has become a leading institution for the study of the artist’s work.
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Liza Lou (American, b. 1969)Gild Amber/Divide, 2012–2014Woven glass beads on canvasMuseum purchase, with funds provided by Pat and Doug Perry, Linda H. Kaufman, Mr. and Mrs. Tim Robertson, Meredith and Brother Rutter, Leah and Richard Waitzer, Joe Waldo, in memory of Amy Brandt, Carolyn and Richard Barry, Patterson and Colin McKinnon, Virginia and John Hitch, Shirley Baldwin, Deb Painter, Selina and Tom Stokes, Leslie Friedman, Suzanne and Vince Mastracco, and Adriane and Stephen Thormahlen© Liza Lou
James Turrell (American, born 1943)Image Stone: Moon Side (detail), 1999Series of six, photogravure, aquatint, and photographic lithographyMuseum purchase© James Turrell
Luke Jerram(English, b. 1974)HIV, 2013From the series Glass Microbiology, 2004–presentFlameworked glassMuseum purchase© Luke Jerram
facing pageCarleton E. Watkins (American, 1829–1916)From the Sentinel Dome, Down the Valley, Yosemite, ca. 1865–1866Mammoth plate albumen print from glass negativeMuseum purchase with funds provided by Michael Bakwin, Susan and David Goode, Penny and Peter Meredith, Nancy and Everett Martin, Mary Ellen and Daniel Dechert, Christina and George Kemp, and Amy and Kirk Levy
Edward S. Curtis(American, 1868–1952)The Vanishing Race, 1904Platinum print Museum purchase
Oliver Harvey Willard(American, 1828–1875)Artillery, Corporal, 1866Albumen print with watercolorMuseum purchase
Luke Jerram’s flameworked model HIV is from his continuing Glass Microbiology series, which depicts viruses enlarged nearly 1,000,000 times. Made entirely of colorless glass, the artworks stand in contrast to the artificially colored imagery of diseases traditionally used to illustrate scientific publications. Today, images of Jerram’s virus sculptures often appear in place of embellished drawings in medical journals and textbooks. By creating deadly viruses as transparent, jewel-like sculptures, he presents a tension between the intrinsic beauty of these glass models and the often deadly reality they represent. Jerram’s work raises challenging questions about global issues that many communities face as they deal with both the tragic history and ongoing concerns of HIV and AIDS.
James Turrell’s popular skyspaces play with light and visual perception. His most famous work to date is perhaps his ongoing project to turn the Roden Crater, a dormant volcano in Arizona, into a sort of celestial observatory. In our new suite of six numbered prints, Turrell uses a variety of technologies to document the ongoing transformation. Created in collaboration with master printmaker Joe Segura, the images include his design of a room for lunar observations and projections, the specially conceived stone on which the image of the moon will appear, and views of the moon in four different phases. This acquisition not only enhances our growing collection of contemporary art, but anticipates a future collaboration between the Chrysler and one of the world’s most prominent artists.
Liza Lou works exclusively with tiny glass beads. In Gild Amber/Divide, the beads are woven together by using a peyote stitch—each bead interlocking and snugly pressed against its neighbor, staggered so that there is a minimal gap between them—to form a fabric. These strips of beads are then sewn onto a canvas and stretched on a frame to give it a rigid shape, 5 ½ feet square. From Lou’s most recent body of work, this minimalist composition in two shades of gold looks like a color-field painting from far away. Only close examination reveals the meticulously detailed beadwork. Requiring a tremendous commitment of time and physicality, Gild Amber/Divide challenges us to meditate on the fulfillment to be found in our labors.
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“Artists are here to disturb the peace,” James Baldwin said in a 1961 interview. With its fluorescent yellow background and the sitter’s penetrating stare, Beauford Delaney’s portrait of the author is a striking—perhaps disturbing—new acquisition.
Baldwin was a celebrated writer and spokesperson for the Civil Rights Movement. In novels like Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) and the essay collection The Fire Next Time (1962), he challenged racism and prejudice. This 1965 portrait is by his mentor Delaney, who, like most African American artists of earlier generations, received limited acclaim during his lifetime. Today Delaney’s vivid layers of color and abstract swirls are recognized as brilliantly blending the emotional energy of Van Gogh with the spiritual rhythms of gospel and jazz.
Born in 1901, Delaney’s uphill battle began in poverty in Knoxville, Tenn. By the 1930s he was in New York meeting the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance: black painters like Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden and poets Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen. Artistically, however, he gravitated toward white, European-inspired circles of modern artists and became friends with Alfred Stieglitz, Thomas Hart Benton, and Stuart Davis.
Despite these prestigious connections, Delaney struggled to pay rent for his unheated studio in Greenwich Village. He worked odd jobs, including stints as a caretaker, porter, and telephone operator at the fledgling Whitney Museum. Wealthy patrons gave him second-hand clothes, including a raincoat that he later cut up when he couldn’t afford canvas for his paintings. Like his friend Baldwin, Delaney understood that talent was no guarantee of comfort for black artists, and both ultimately moved to France for a more tolerant social climate.
Beauford Delaney’s Portrait of James Baldwin is a landmark acquisition, the Chrysler’s first-ever purchase of a painting by a deceased black artist. We welcome its fearless color into our galleries, where it shines a blazing yellow spotlight on America’s history of injustice toward minorities. But the fight for equality and respect continues, and we promise to bring you more works of art that disturb the peace.
Disturbing the Peace:Beauford Delaney’s James Baldwin Arrives at the Chrysler
Beauford Delaney (American, 1901–1979)Portrait of James Baldwin, 1965Oil on canvasMuseum purchase© Estate of Beauford Delaney, used by permission
By the time Edward Curtis made this picture, often considered his signature image, Native Americans had endured decades of forced assimilation and relocation to reservations. The pioneering 19th-century photographer believed his prints served to document the traditions of the so-called “vanishing race.” Though he spent 30 years on his 40-volume photographic record, The North American Indian, his images show no evidence of the conflicts that destroyed Native American customs, nor of the ongoing efforts to sustain them. Instead, soft edges and muted tones make this visual metaphor seem especially dreamlike. It is as if the Native Americans riding away from the camera already were fading into memory, or as Curtis described it, “the darkness of an unknown future.”
Few had ever seen Yosemite’s dramatic beauty when Carleton Watkins created this photograph. The region’s soaring peaks and plunging cliffs had shielded it from settlers, and cumbersome camera equipment made images of the site rare. This photo only hints at the labor required to create it. Watkins loaded a pack of mules with more than 2,000 pounds of baggage: an enormous camera, tripods, a darktent, glass plates, processing chemicals, and camping supplies for a months-long journey. He had to coat and process his glass plates on-site, but if dust settled on them or if wind rustled the leaves during the long exposure, the photo would be ruined. By providing a pristine view of nature in all its glory, Watkins set a precedent for generations of landscape photographers to follow.
Following the success of our exhibition Shooting Lincoln, the Chrysler’s impressive collection of Civil War-era photography grows with the acquisition of three works by early Philadelphia photographer Oliver H. Willard. Commissioned in 1866 by the Army’s Quartermaster General, supervisor of equipment and supplies, these vintage albumen prints are from a large set documenting the distinctive uniforms belonging to different ranks, divisions, and duties among soldiers. The same model, a bearded, middle-aged man, changed costume to pose for all works in the series. In Artillery, Corporal, he holds a long rifle and turns to face viewers. To show the uniforms’ colors—here a dark blue coat, light blue trousers, and red stripes on the sleeves— the black-and-white prints were carefully hand-tinted with watercolor.
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The Chrysler has new PaJaMas. Maintaining our reputation as a pioneer in collecting photography, the Museum purchased at auction two 1940s photos collaboratively made by Paul Cadmus, Jared French, and Margaret French. Sharing a camera, this trio staged photos of themselves and friends during summer retreats to beaches on Long Island and Cape Cod. They signed these joint works “PaJaMa,” an acronym based on the first letters of their names. Notice the visual balance of the two men seated on sawhorses in this photo—typical of the artists’ astute use of symmetry and composition to create their haunting images. Instead of casual vacation snapshots, the PaJaMa group produced bold and surreal experiments in space, shape, and shadow.
facing pagePréfecture de Police de Paris, Service de l’Identité Judiciare Paris, France Crue de la Seine. Quai Debilly. Paris, Janvier 1910 and Juillet 1910, 1910Gelatin silver printsMuseum purchase, in memory of Alice R. and Sol B. Frank
Louis Maurice Boutet de Monvel(French, 1851–1913) Portrait of a Young Girl, 1880Oil on canvasGift of Joseph T. Waldo, in honor of Jeff Harrison and his 33 years of service to the Chrysler Museum of Art
Christopher Dresser, designer(British, b. Scotland, 1834–1904)James Couper & Sons, manufacturerGlasgow, ScotlandClutha Pitcher, ca. 1895Blown glass Museum purchase
PaJaMaAmerican, active 1937–1950sPaul Cadmus (American, 1904–1999; Jared French (American, 1905–1988; Margaret Hoening French (American, 1889–1973)George Platt Lynes and Jared French, Fire Island, ca. 1940Gelatin silver printMuseum purchase© Estate of Paul Cadmus / Licensed by VAGA, New York© Jared French© Margaret French / Artists Rights Society, New York
Frederick Carder(American, b. United Kingdom, 1863–1963)Diatreta Vase, 1958Pâte de verre (glass)Gift of Leah and Richard Waitzer in recognition of Chief Curator Emeritus Jeff Harrison and his 33 years of service to the Chrysler Museum of Art
Greta Pratt (American, b. 1955)Julee and her Daughters, Chandler, AZ, 2014Archival pigment print, printed 2015Gift of the artist, © Greta Pratt
At the age of 95, Frederick Carder was still at the top of his craft. The co-founder of Steuben Glass created this intricate homage to the ancient Roman cage cup in 1958, just a year before he retired from glassmaking. Like the luxury glass factory he directed, Carder’s own artistic work was known for exceptional quality, ambitious design, and bold color. Using the lost wax process, he crafted a remarkable vessel of marbleized clear and opaque blue glass. Raised latticework, grotesque masks, and small cartouches emulate the ancients, as does an inscription: Straight is the line of duty. Curved is the line of beauty. All of the work on this rare signed vessel was Carder’s own: astonishing, significant, and uniquely his.
Greta Pratt, when she’s not teaching at Old Dominion University, crisscrosses the country in search of modern-day rituals that are in dialogue with the past. The Chrysler is proud to have exhibited and purchased her Nineteen Lincolns series, as well as acquired one of the photographer’s newest works. Julee and Her Daughters, Chandler, AZ is from her ongoing project A Cloud of Dust, in which Pratt turns her lens from the American presidency to another historical subject: the Wild West. Like Pratt’s Lincoln presenters, the Bradys and their horses charm audiences with their vintage costumes. By showing us a dynamic family of cowgirls who win rodeo pageants, Pratt offers a witty, even subversive, alternative to the traditional iconography of the West as a place only for lonesome cowboys.
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This exquisite oil portrait is but one of several fine works recently given to the Chrysler in honor of Chief Curator Emeritus Jeff Harrison. Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel, also one of the foremost children’s book illustrators of his generation, painted this attentive young girl in France around 1880. In contrast to the loose, impressionist style of Pierre August Renoir or Mary Cassatt, he renders her penetrating blue-eyed gaze in sharp detail, evidence of his academic training. Critics hailed Boutet de Monvel’s mastery of expression and character, particularly in his paintings of children. This charming portrait makes it easy to see why.
When the Seine River rose six feet above normal levels in the winter of 1910, massive flooding drove thousands in central Paris from their homes. The city police sent teams of photographers to document the devastation, and six months later, long after the water had receded, a second round of images were made in the same locations. The Chrysler has purchased one of these rare before-and-after photo pairs, two views of the Quai Debilly in the 16th Arrondissement, just north of the Pont d’Iena. Looking at the reflections of facades in the flooded street, one senses that these anonymous Parisian photographers appreciated the beauty of their city even during this moment of crisis.
Christopher Dresser was one of the great industrial Scottish designers of his day, creating distinctive, culture-melding styles for ceramics, metalwork, furniture, and textiles. His eclectic designs for glass were produced by James Couper & Sons of Glasgow and retailed at the fashionable Liberty & Co. department store in London. Dresser’s Clutha pitcher shows his keen interest in combining decorative styles from many parts of the world, incorporating elements inspired by historical Roman and Islamic glass. Companies in the 19th century often employed a range of exotic names to market lines of glass—in this case borrowing Clutha, the Latin name for the River Clyde in Glasgow.
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In Memoriam
Michele Franklin Ward (1958–2015)Possibly the most colorful employee to ever grace the halls of the Chrysler Museum of Art, Michele Franklin Ward was also the longest serving member of our staff at the time of her passing in November 2015. Michele came to the Chrysler in 1980 and quickly established herself as a dedicated security officer and one of our most recognizable employees because of her distinctive personal style.
Her irrepressible personality would not allow her to sit still. She studied art at Tidewater Community College, painted at home, created jewelry and fiber art, and wrote poetry. When she wasn’t busy with those pursuits, Michele satisfied her creative urge with an abiding love of music. She not only performed in an alternative rock band, Hegemony, in area venues, she also performed solo, playing guitar and singing her own compositions. Michele was famous around the Chrysler for her creative hairstyles and frequent changes in hair color. She sported a variety of wigs in accordance with her preference of the day or week, yet she was never out of place in the accepting environment at the Museum. Michele was a Norfolk native and graduated from Maury High School. We here at the Chrysler and her friends will remember Michele as a fiercely creative spirit with a quiet, gentle demeanor. She loved people and life, and always brought a smile to the faces of those with whom she came in contact.
Gifts in memory of Michele Franklin will go to a college savings plan to benefit her son.
American FundsMemo: Chester Ward, Custodian for Genesis WardWall Einhorn & Chernitzer, P.C.c/o Linda Dore, Paraprofessional150 W. Main Street, Suite 1200Norfolk, VA 23510
Ann Dearsley-Vernon (1938–2015) No one who knew Ann Dearsley-Vernon would be surprised to learn that the night before she died at 77, she spent an evening with friends at the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. Ann loved life, adored the arts, and was a fighter who was passionate about her beliefs. True to form, she was one of a handful of white students who joined black protesters at the now famous Woolworth lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro, N.C. in 1960.
More than a decade later, Ann displayed that same fearlessness when she wrote to the Chrysler Museum of Art to suggest improvements to a Picasso exhibition that included four paintings from Walter Chrysler, Jr.’s collection. Chrysler, who headed the Museum then, immediately summoned the unemployed art teacher for a meeting, then hired her on the spot to be the Chrysler’s first director of education. She remained in that role for almost 30 years, building our volunteer Docent Corps and coordinating exhibitions that focused on her lifelong passion—educating young people, especially about social justice.
In 2011, Ann’s health took a turn when she almost died from heart failure. Rather than fixate on her illness, she allowed herself to be outfitted with an experimental heart and used that experience as a catalyst to take up painting again. She produced a series of artworks she called My Mechanical Heart, two of which hang in the Sentara Heart Hospital.
Ann was a positive force for life and for doing what you love. Her community spirit lives on and offers a life lesson to everyone here.
Gifts in memory of Ann Vernon will benefit the Chrysler Museum of Art’s educational programs and public outreaches.
Michele Franklin Ward poses beside her 2006 portrait of her son, Genesis, as a baby. The oil painting was her contribution to the 2009 staff art show, After Hours. Photo by Ed Pollard, Museum Photographer
Ann Dearsley-Vernon was the Chrysler Museum of Art’s first Director of Education. Hired directly by Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., she served in the position for nearly three decades.Chrysler Museum Archive photo
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Impact Across Our State
December’s Third Thursday was an encore partnership with the Governor’s School for the Arts. A Common Thread marked their second annual fashion show of wearable art inspired by works in the Chrysler Collection or our exhibitions. The GSA Jazz Band warmed up the crowd before students showcased their original creations on the Huber Court catwalk.
Photos by Eleise Theurer for the Chrysler Museum of Art
As part of the Chrysler’s Salute to Service last November, veterans and active-duty military members crowded the Perry Glass Studio for our third annual free ornament blow for Veterans Glassblowing Day.
Photo by Glass Studio staff
Robin Rogers, with help from Hannah Kirkpatrick, had the honor of creating an ornament to hang on the tree in Virginia’s Executive Mansion. He fashioned a clear-glass anchor at the Perry Glass Studio to represent our city’s naval heritage.
Photos courtesy of City of Norfolk
The Virginia Department of Forestry awarded its prestigious Browning Award for 2015 to the Chrysler’s Team Smokey for our partnership in presenting Celebrating Smokey Bear: Rudy Wendelin and the Creation of an Icon.
Photos by John Campbell, Virginia Department of Forestry
22 | spring 2016
Books and MoreA JOCL Update
|
Throwback Thursday: A Chrysler Weekly FavoriteEach week the Throwback Thursday section of Webmaster Gary Marshall’s weekly e-blast offers visual time travel for its readers as we share favorite memories preserved in the archives of the Jean Outland Chrysler Library.
Subscribers have seen the inside a fully staffed operating room at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Norfolk in 1904, watched Coxswain Herman cry “stroke” to his crew at the U.S. Naval Training Station of Hampton Institute in 1943, and seen into a 1944 diorama of the dining room of the Moses Myers House as it probably looked in 1791.
These images just skim the surface of a diverse archive that includes many periods of regional history, U.S. history, the business and family affairs of Moses Myers, and, of course, the famous M. Knoedler & Co. art dealership reference collection.
To enjoy our Throwback Thursday features, opt in to receive our weekly electronic update here: chrysler.org/membership/sign-up-for-email.
—Jeannine Harkleroad, Jean Outland Chrysler Library Assistant
Books on Glass: A Historic Gift Paul N. Perrot, director of the Corning Museum of Glass from 1960–1972, has enhanced the JOCL’s holdings about glass with a substantial donation of 16 boxes of books from his personal collection. He developed his reference library during the 20 years he was with Corning and in the years following as he served in leadership roles at the Smithsonian Institution, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Perrot, who is retired in Houston, says he has “followed the splendid development of the Chrysler Museum of Art” for more than 50 years. His donation to the Jean Outland Chrysler Library is certain to delight glass researchers everywhere.
The hundreds of volumes, monographs, catalogues, and specialized publications in his gift include not only fundamental tomes on glass, but many now-hard-to-find publications on scientific, archaeological, technical, aesthetic, historic, and exhibition aspects of the subject. The donation augments the JOCL’s holdings with a significant collection of research books published by Corning, as well as a nearly comprehensive set of works he has written and edited. Though duplicate copies were offered to our Perry Glass Studio Team to improve their personal collections, the vast majority of the books we cataloged are new accessions for the JOCL. We are deeply grateful for this exceptionally generous gift. Stop by the Library to see some of these new additions.
A Donation with a Purpose: Youth DevelopmentSeveral boxes of duplicate arts books from the JOCL needed a new home, and who better than a local youth organization to benefit from our bounty?
Teens With a Purpose, also known as TWP—The Youth Movement, are active in peer-led poetry slams, art creation, and musical and dance events across Hampton Roads. The nonprofit’s mission is “to empower young people to use their voices, energy, abilities, and talent” to change their lives and their communities for the better.
The teens helped staff from the Chrysler relocate the books from the JOCL to TWP’s Norfolk headquarters, and were excited to explore the donation boxes. In addition to encouraging them in their arts endeavors, the well-rounded selection of books has been entrusted to the care of one of their students, Elijah, an aspiring librarian. Learn more about Teens With a Purpose at twp-themovement.org.
—Allison Termine, Dickson Librarian
Photo from the Jean Outland Chrysler Library Archives
December 22 was moving day as the Jean Outland Chrysler Library donated several boxes of duplicate books to Norfolk-based Teens With a Purpose.
back: Terry Benson and Mike Braun (CMA Facilities Team)center: Emeka Onyirimba, Marvin Parker, Elijah Judson, Michael Berlucchi (CMA Community Engagement Manager), Deirdre Love (TWP Executive Director), Jeannine Harkleroad (JOCL Assistant)front row: Amakhatmaati Tyehimba, Mary Yaeger and Benjamin Boshart (CMA Gallery Hosts),Photo by Michael Berlucchi
chrysler news | 23
Again in 2016, the Chrysler Museum’s Perry
Glass Studio continues to bring notable names
in the world of glass to Norfolk. Some will create
new work before the public in our Visiting
Artist Series. Others, whose artmaking takes
more time, will present illustrated lectures on
their work. In all cases, these invited guests are
acclaimed for their solid success as cutting-edge
contemporary artists.
The Visiting Artist Series 2016Rik AllenRik Allen’s futuristic explorations in glass focus on rocketry and space travel, conveying the wonder and humor of science fiction’s mid-20th-century vision of the future. Allen has been a staple of the Seattle glass world since 1995, working both at Pilchuck Glass School and on the glass sculpture team of William Morris. He and his wife, artist Shelley Muzylowski Allen, teach at leading international glass schools. They also exhibit their highly collectible work regularly at American museums and galleries.
March 3–6 | FreeCome watch Rik Allen sculpt imaginative new works inspired by his love of science and by the 100th anniversary of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Working live in the Perry Glass StudioThursday, March 3–Saturday, March 510 a.m.–1 p.m. and 2:30–5 p.m.Sunday, March 6 | 11 a.m.–2 p.m.
Live Narrated Demos | Daily | noon
Artist Lecture | Sunday, March 6 | 4 p.m.
Guest Artist LecturesJudith SchaechterWednesday, April 6 | 6 p.m. | FreeJudith Schaechter’s secular stained glass is famed the world over. Though she uses traditional copper foil-and-lead techniques, her subject matter is decidedly contemporary and sometimes confrontational. In evocative glass panels, she presents the dramedy of everyday emotions and challenges as parables. Her award-winning works are known for their pathos and power, melancholy and mystery. Truly an original, with an incredible sense of humor, Schaechter is highly regarded in the art world and exhibits her work nationally and internationally. She was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial and the 2012 Venice Biennale, and in 2013 she was inducted to the American Craft Council College of Fellows. Join us to hear directly from Judith herself what she has in mind to create next in her own inimitable style.
Joyce ScottThursday, May 12 | 6 p.m. | FreeJoyce Scott’s cultural combinations and diverse aesthetic have raised the profile for artists of color for more than four decades. She is hailed for her narrative sculpture, provocative performances, and mixed-media art created with appropriated objects. Her mixed-media sculptures provide a biting social commentary on racism, sexism, violence, and stereotypes, but with an overarching theme of spiritual healing. A signature of her best-known works is detailed glass beadwork, which she painstakingly hand-sews to create intricate and often figurative works. Her incisive work is in the collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Come discover how Scott’s richly textured works are as thought-provoking as they are beautiful.
—Robin Rogers, Assistant Manager, Perry Glass Studio
Big Namesin Glassat the Perry
Rik Allen (American, b. 1967)Coribitous Ocularium, 2014, Blown glass, silver and steelImage by KP Studios, courtesy of the artist
Judith Schaechter (American, b. 1961)Battle of Carnival and Lent, 2012Stained glass, cut, sandblasted, engraved, painted, stained and fired, cold paint; assembled with copperfoilImage courtesy of the artist
Joyce Scott (American, b. 1948)Buddha (Fire & Water), 2013Hand-blown Murano glass processes, beads, wire, and threadImage courtesy of the artist
24 | spring 2016
Wednesday, March 23Colin Bailey, Ph.D.Director, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York
History of The MorganJohn Pierpont Morgan, the most influential financier in American history, was also a voracious art collector in virtually every medium, including rare books, manuscripts, drawings, prints, and ancient artifacts. Discover how the venerable institution he founded in 1924 became one of the world's great treasuries of seminal artistic, literary, musical, and historical works.
Monday, April 18Lindsay PollockEditor-in-Chief, Art in America
Contemporary Art in the Post-Internet AgeThe World Wide Web changes everything, including how 21st-century artists conceive and conceptualize their latest work. Increased accessibility to millions of images that can be appropriated, altered, or animated give today’s artmakers new digital strategies and tools for personal expression, collective creation, and easy-upload distribution to international audiences. Engaging and sometimes ephemeral, these new works—whether on view digitally or in reality—present novel possibilities, relationships, and challenges as they redefine art in our day.
Annual Meeting, Benefit Luncheon, and RaffleAfter the lecture, the NSA concludes this season with a brief annual meeting and a special luncheon to benefit of the Chrysler Museum of Art. Tickets cost $75. To make your reservation, please contact Alice Koziol at (757) 417-8494.
Luncheon guests may buy raffle tickets ($10 each, 3 for $25, cash or check) for a chance to win one of several fun-themed baskets donated for the benefit. The stunning orchids that adorn each table also will be available for purchase.
Each month’s event
begins with a
coffee reception
in Huber Court at
10:30 a.m., followed
by the free lecture
in the Museum’s
Kaufman Theater
at 11 a.m.
The Norfolk Society of Arts promotes and enhances the cultural life of the South Hampton Roads community through lectures, special events, and financial support to the Chrysler Museum of Art. NSA membership is open to all. For more information about membership or the Society, please contact Edith Grandy at (757) 621-0861 or [email protected].
Good News for Donors and the MuseumThe comprehensive tax and spending law that Congress recently enacted contains one measure that will serve as a great gift to the Chrysler Museum of Art and those who support us. Included in the law is a provision that restores the IRA Charitable Rollover permanently.
The IRA Charitable Rollover allows individuals age 70 ½ to donate up to $100,000 to charitable organizations directly from their IRA without the disbursement counting as taxable income. To qualify, the donation must be made to a public charity and must be made from a traditional or a Roth IRA.
It’s a great incentive for Americans to give back to the organizations they care about during their lifetimes. Many donors who use this gift instrument are now able to give substantially more, giving them the opportunity to see how their generosity helps nonprofits transform their communities.
The Rollover was allowed to expire in 2008, but was renewed by Congress annually until January 2015. The legislation making the rollover permanent helps nonprofits by removing the uncertainty of whether donors can continue to count on this powerful incentive to give.
If you would like find out more about making a tax-advantaged contribution to the Chrysler Museum of Art, please contact Director of Development Brian Wells at (757) 965-2032.
Cour
tesy
of Li
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ock
member exclusives | 25
Join fellow Chrysler Museum Members on special trips that offer unique opportunities to learn about the artistic and cultural life of destinations both far and near. Our Art Travel Program offers excursions that include arranged activities as well as time for independent exploration. Your dream vacation awaits!
Exclusive 2016 Travel for Upper-Level Museum Members
Sicilia: An Adventure in Art and CultureApril 2–15, 2016Members at the Director’s Circle and above are invited to join Museum Director Erik Neil and his wife, artist Luisa Adelfio, on an exclusive art travel experience to Sicily. Travelers will cross the island to visit cultural centers including Palermo, Agrigento, and Siracusa, with breathtaking sights in between. Erik and Luisa are excited to share their personal knowledge and passion for the island they know so well.
2016 Trips for All Chrysler Museum Members
The Rich Heritage of Southern Italy and The Dalmatian CoastApril 28–May 6, 2016Enjoy an exclusive seven-night voyage from Rome to Dubrovnik aboard Le Lyrial, a new small-ship launched last spring. Its 122 exterior staterooms and suites and many amenities will make you feel like you’re sailing aboard your own yacht as you explore these culture-rich locales.
The Great Journey through EuropeJuly 5–15, 2016This extraordinary 11-day Grand Tour of Europe lets you explore the picturesque waterways, lakes, mountains, and countryside of Switzerland, France, Germany, and The Netherlands. Cruise aboard the deluxe Amadeus Fleet along the most scenic sections of the Rhine River. Ride aboard three legendary railways—the Matterhorn’s Gornergrat Bahn, the famous Glacier Express, and Lucerne’s Pilatus Railway.
Island Life of Cuba October 20–November 7, 2016Be among the first U.S. travelers to experience Cuba during this unprecedented, nine-day People to People opportunity. See Old Havana, Santa Clara, Matanzas, and Pinar del Río. Enjoy comfortable accommodations, interact with local experts, and immerse yourself in Cuba’s history, culture, art, language, cuisine, and daily life.
Find out more about any of our art travel programs at Chrysler.org/membership/art-travel-program. For pricing or to book your next vacation, contact Donor Stewardship Manager Kerry Martinolich at (757) 333-6318 or [email protected].
Photos by Gohagen and Company, iStock photo © Darios44
World Travels with the Chrysler
Whenever and wherever you travel take your CMA membership card with you.
Chrysler Museum Members at the Associate level and above enjoy free admission and member benefits to more than at more than 250 North American museums through ROAM, the Reciprocal Organization of Associated Museums.
Chrsyler Members at the Friend level and above gain benefits at an additional 75 U.S. and Canadian culture organizations trough the Museum Alliance Reciprocal Membership Program.
The full list of participating museums is available online at chrysler.org/membership.
26 | spring 2016
Exclusive Members’ Events
Evening with the Director on January 19 thanked 125 guests from our Masterpiece Society, Corporate Leadership Alliance, and Director’s Circle for their support.
Vickie Bilisoly, Betsy Hardy, and Lorrie Saunders; Meredith and Cynthia RosePhotos by Eleise Theurer for the Chrysler Museum of Art
Our Honorable Society of Former Trustees and current Board Members met last fall for an evening focused on the Museum’s latest conservation efforts.
Jerrauld and Lyn Simmons Jones; Paul Hirschbiel and Rev. Joseph Green
Photos by Echard Wheeler for the Chrysler Museum of Art
Andrew Raftery was our guest speaker for the Fall Program of The Masterpiece Society. The contemporary printmaker is known for his classically styled burin engravings and visual storytelling.
Peggy and Barry Pollara, Michael Bakwin, and Carroll Frohman
Masterpiece Society Chair Virginia Hitch and artist Andrew Raftery
Bill Pinkham, Dana and Linda Dickens
Photos by Eleise Theuer for the Chrysler Museum of Art
member exclusives | 27
Third Thursday The evenings of March 17, April 21, and May 19 Our monthly after-hours evenings at the Museum and the Perry Glass Studio offer eclectic programs, artful entertainment, and a cash bar to enjoy with friends. Museum Members at all levels always are admitted for free. It’s only $5 for all others, so bring someone new and introduce them to the Chrysler.
Conversations with the CuratorsThe evening of Thursday, March 31Come see the Chrysler up-close and behind the scenes. The Museum welcomes Members at our Patron level and above to be our guests for this perennially popular program. After cocktails, our curators and conservators share their unique insights into the Chrysler Collection. Kindly R.S.V.P. when your mailed invitation arrives to select your favorite topics.
Feldman Chamber Music Society Concert Discounts Monday, April 4 | Hermitage Piano TrioChrysler Museum Members save 20% on single $25 tickets purchased at the door for FCMS concerts in our Kaufman Theater. WHRO’s Dwight Davis hosts a preconcert reception at 7 p.m., with the performances beginning at 7:30 p.m. For more information, see feldmanchambermusic.org.
Water: An Insiders’ Tour for MembersSaturday, April 23 | 9 a.m.Members at the Friend level and above are invited to join us for a special breakfast and a docent-led tour of our keynote exhibition, Edward Burtynsky: Water. Invitations will by arrive by mail. Space is limited, so please reserve your spot early.
The Masterpiece Society Spring ProgramThe evening of Thursday, May 12At this season’s exclusive program, Masterpiece Society Members welcome the co-curator of The Costumes of Downton Abbey. Jeff Groff, Director of Public Programs at Delaware’s Winterthur Museum, details how this exhibition came together and how PBS acquired the period costumes for its popular Emmy-award-winning drama. Invitations will arrive by mail this spring.
•••
The Chrysler Museum of Art offers personal, household, and corporate memberships at 10 different levels of investment. Choose the one that suits your interests and needs. All Members enjoy invitations to exclusive Member events, art travel opportunities, and discounts on Glass Studio classes, dining at Wisteria, and purchases at The Museum Shop.
Join the Museum at the Welcome Desk or the Perry Glass Studio when you visit, or discover all the benefits at each level and become a Member online at www.chrysler.org/membership.
To renew or upgrade your membership to a higher benefits level, please contact Development Officer Megan Frost at (757) 333-6294 or [email protected].
Don’t-Miss Events and Benefits for Members
The Masterpiece Society Art Purchase Dinner set a new attendance record in 2015 as 310 guests attended the December 15 event. Society Members heard the Museum’s curators and director present works of art they sought to acquire for the Museum. After three spirited rounds of voting, they agreed to purchase The Last Drop by Charles Schreyvogel, adding the first Western American bronze to the Chrysler Collection. Contributions by generous donors also allowed the Chrysler to obtain two other desirable artworks by Liza Lou and Carleton Watkins. (Learn more about these and other noteworthy new accessions in this issue’s cover story on pages 14–19.)
Museum Director Erik Neil, Curator of Exhibitions Seth Feman, Barry Curator of Glass Diane Wright, and Brock Curator of American Art Alex Mann
Bebe Edmonds, Monique Adams, and Lynne Monroe
Betty Willcox and Gudi Stambuk study the winning statue.
Henry Light, Bill and Nancy Oelrich, and Angelica Light
Photos courtesy of Glenn Bashaw/Images in Light, for the Chrysler Museum of Art
28 | spring 2016
Open Water
Members Dive Into New Show
|
Frigid air and a warm Chrysler welcome made our Canadian headliner feel at home for the Members’ Exhibition Opening Party for Edward Burtynsky: Water. Our new keynote show debuted on February 11 for nearly 500 Members and special guests. The packed Kaufman Theater audience enjoyed a fascinating talk between the globetrotting photographer and Museum Director Erik Neil. Afterward, though Huber Court was awash with partygoers, the galleries were the real attraction. Guests reveled over 60 wall-spanning digital prints of amazing detail, promising to bring friends to impress on their next Museum visit.
Photos by Charlie Gunter for the Chrysler Museum of Art
last look | 29
A Flood of Activity
GLASS WHEEL STUDIONorfolk | glasswheelstudio.com
This NEON District gallery space offers two environmentally conscious exhibitions. In Dioramas for the Anthropocene, Jennifer Bueno combines satellite images with glassmaking and painting to transform alarming views of pollution and sea-level rise into jewel-like, floating microcosms of our planet in flux. Rachel Schmidt’s Apocaloptimist: A Future True Story playfully creates a mythical miniature model city that merges nature into the urban wilderness. Video projections and audience participation create a new future that is less gloom- and-doom than dystopia. Both the shows are on view through March 20.
WORK | RELEASE Norfolk | workreleasenorfolk.com
NativeWhether one hails from afar or has always called Norfolk home, our waterfront community’s culture spills into daily life and seeps into its art. This exhibition of 21 new works by local creators gives a glimpse into the impact that waterways have had an on our region. Curated by artists Charlotte Potter and Gayle Forman from the Chrysler’s Perry Glass Studio, this show, presented by the Rutter Family Art Foundation, is on view through March 19.
VIRGINIA STAGE COMPANY, VIRGINIA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, AND VIRGINIA ARTS FESTIVALNorfolk | vastage.org
Three leading arts organizations join to present William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, adapted and directed by VSC’s Patrick Mullins. This fully staged theatrical production, April 16–17 at Chrysler Hall, features the music of Jean Sibelius performed by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and the VSO Chorus under the baton of JoAnn Falletta. It’s a sight-and-sound storm you won’t want to miss.
VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ARTVirginia Beach | virginiaMOCA.org
Water inspires much of MOCA’s spring schedule. In Surface Tension, Crystal Wagner turns common synthetic materials into an organic, sculptural installation that engulfs its gallery. Courtney Mattison: Sea Change presents large hand-crafted porcelain works that celebrate the fragile beauty of the endangered marine ecosystem. An interactive, reef-focused ARTLab and Just Add Water, an exhibition of short animated films, complete the thematic immersion. All are on view through April 17.
MARINERS’ MUSEUMNewport News | marinersmuseum.org
Most everything at America’s National Maritime Museum has a direct connection to water—exhibits on scrimshaw, miniature ships, and Admiral Nelson, as well as a seminar promoting boating safety at sea. The museum’s annual Battle of Hampton Roads Weekend, held this year on March 5–6, commemorates the epic confrontation between the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia in 1862.
CHRYSLER MUSEUM PARTNERSHIPSNorfolk | chrysler.org
Hampton Roads Sea-Level Rise Adaptation ForumOrganized by the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, Old Dominion University, and Virginia Sea Grant, and hosted by the Chrysler Museum, this February 18 discussion focused on sea-level rise in our community, especially how it relates to the arts, culture, and education in our locale. Artist Norwood Viviano, whose work is on view at the Museum, was a special guest contributor.
Blue Planet Forum— Water: A Blessing and a CurseThe Chrysler partners with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, and Old Dominion University to present this May 15 forum inspired by Edward Burtynsky: Water. A panel of six respected scientists, environmental leaders, educators, and artists will explore local and global issues related to our most vital and valuable natural resource.
Water is the unofficial
theme for Norfolk for 2016.
In the spirit of sharing
our Edward Burtynsky
exhibition, we share some
of the other “must-sea”
artistic offerings from
across the area.
Edward Burtynsky (Canadian, b. 1955) Ölfusá River #1, Iceland (detail), 2012 Digital chromogenic print, 48 x 60 inches © Edward Burtynsky Image courtesy of Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto; Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York; and Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery, New York
non profit org.u.s. postage
paid
norfolk, va
permit #138
One Memorial Place | Norfolk, VA 23510(757) 664-6200 | chrysler.org
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museum and glass studio hoursTuesday–Saturday from 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
Sunday from noon–5 p.m.
Third Thursday til 10 p.m.
Wisteria, the Museum restaurant is open during Museum hours.
Free Parking Wheelchair Accessible
historic houses hoursSaturday and Sunday from noon–5 p.m.Limited Accessibility
general admission is free and supported by Museum Members!Join the Chrysler on site, on the phone at (757) 333-6298, or online at chrysler.org/membership.
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The Chrysler Museum of Art is partially supported by grants from the City of Norfolk, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Business Consortium for Arts Support, and the Edwin S. Webster Foundation.
SUMMER CAMPS AT THE CHRYSLER
Museum Kids’ Camp Ages 7–10
Monday–Friday, July 25–29 | 8:30 a.m.–4 p.m.Our theme is STEAM—learn how “art is the queen of all sciences (Leonardo da Vinci).” Campers: explore the Museum’s galleries, various artmaking methods, and innovation to create a portfolio of your own work.
Cost: $175 per camper for Museum Members, $275 for all others
Teen Hot Glass Camp Ages 13–17
Monday–Friday, June 20–24 | 8:30 a.m.–4 p.m.Teens: heat up your summer with a sizzling week of glassmaking techniques. Try glassblowing, flameworking, coldworking, and more, plus gain the confidence and experience you’ll need to take more classes at the Studio.
Cost: $575 per camper for Museum Members, $750 for all others
Registration is now open for these weeklong options. Sign up now at reservations.chrysler.org.