Fine Arts
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Words and Images Allan Rohan Crite 1910 – 2007
A Virtual Visit to St. Botolph Club Exhibition
By: - Apr 08th, 2020Shortly after the exhibition Words & Images Allan Rohan Crite 1910 – 2007 opened the private St. Botolph Club was closed because of the pandemic. There is however a link to a video that provides a virtual tour of the exhibition. Crite is regarded as a leading Boston artist of his generation. He was a graduate of the Museum School. The Museum of Fine Arts is remiss in not planning a major exhibition of this remarkable and widely influential artist.
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Former ICA Director Sydney Roberts Rockefeller
Recalling Events 1973-1974
By: - Apr 15th, 2020Then 27 the Institute of Contemporary Art was the first of many boards that Sydney Roberts Rockefeller joined. Director Andrew C. Hyde quit not long after the beginning of his second term. Left in the lurch was a planned conference on public art. When she stepped up to rescue the conference the board made her director. She was on site during the renovation of 955 Boylston Street. It was designed and largely funded by the architect Graham Gund.
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Alan Shestack, 1938 to 2020
Former Director of the Museum of Fine Arts
By: - Apr 16th, 2020From 1987 to 1993 Alan Shestack was director of the Museum of Fine Arts. He followed Jan Fontein who was director from 1975 to 1987.
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Curator James Manning
Overview of Boston's Artists and Alternative Galleries
By: - Apr 17th, 2020For decades artist, curator, installer James Manning has covered Boston's emerging artists and alternative galleries. Other than when Bill Arning was at MIT List nobody has made a greater effort to interact with emerging artists and their galleries. He had his own gallery Art Vigor in East Boston and was director of Gallery FX, a pioneer of the SOWA art district. This activity was rarely covered by the mainstream media. This is an attempt to document a vibrant era . From 2008 until his death in 2018 Manning worked with curator Joe Ketner at Emerson College.
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Hancock Shaker Village a Living History Museum
Jennifer Trainer Thompson Discusses Plans for a 2020 Season
By: - Apr 23rd, 2020In a normal season the Hancock Shaker Village, which was founded sixty years ago near Pittsfield, is open from April through December. With spring planting and the birth of livestock this is a busy time of year. The annual Baby Animals Festival draws some 20% of annual visitation and 15% of earned revenue. We spoke with director Jennifer Trainer Thompson about strategies to function during the pandemic.
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The Remarkable Mario Diacono
Opened a Boston Gallery in 1985
By: - Apr 26th, 2020The status of the Italian poet, essayist and gallerist, Mario Diacono, is legendary. To be with his wife Claudette, a native of Lynn, Mass, he moved to Boston and opened a gallery in 1985. He was renowned for showing a single work for which he wrote scholarly essays. Then relatively affordable he made few Boston sales of the now renowned artists he exhibited. The Museum of Fine Arts bought a Ross Bleckner painting and appropriation by Sherrie Levine. Most of the work was acquired by the Italian collector Achille Maramotti. Today Diacono is a curator for Collezione Maramotti.
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Emerson Contemporary On Line Exhibition
What’s Next? Art for Tomorrow
By: - Apr 30th, 2020While Emerson College in Boston is closed the The Media Gallery may be viewed on line.
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Gallery Naga On Line Only
Nicole Chesney and Rick Fox
By: - May 04th, 2020To mark the beginning of another month in this surreal and uncertain time, Gallery NAGA will present the third solo exhibition of glowing, ephemeral paintings by Nicole Chesney and luscious, Irish landscapes on paper by Rick Fox.
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Shaker Museum, Mount Lebanon
Call For Art
By: - May 07th, 2020Shaker Museum, Mount Lebanon invites the public to participate in a community engagement project, “Call for Art: In Union, Remotely,” with artwork which may be submitted in a variety of mediums.
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About My Painting by Pieter de Hooch
A Woman Seated by a Window with a Child in the Doorway
By: - May 07th, 2020I look to a painting on my wall by the 17th century Dutch painter, Pieter de Hooch. It is a domestic scene of a mother calmly peeling turnips in a corner while a child enters the threshold carrying a flask and a plate, smiling down at a little dog looking up in anticipation. I am relieved.
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George Segal at Green Gallery
On this Day, May 8, Back in 1962
By: - May 08th, 2020Rembering when George Segal first exhibited at Dick Bellamy's Green Street Gallery on May 8, 1962
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MASK MoCA Indeed
A Friend in Need
By: - May 08th, 2020MASS MoCA is in pain as are all of us. Joe Thompson appeals for our help. For now in North Adams its MASK MoCA.
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Al Hirschfeld On Line Exhibition
Socially Distant Theatre
By: - May 11th, 2020The Al Hirschfeld Foundation is proud to announce the first in a series of online exhibitions exploring the work of one of the most iconic artists of the last century. On May 11, the Foundation will open a special exhibition for these times: "SOCIALLY DISTANT THEATER: The Solo Show As Seen By Hirschfeld", a collection of 25 drawings, paintings, collages, and prints documenting a half century of one person shows. This special digital exhibit will be online for six weeks through June 20.
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MFA Pledges $500,000 for Diversity
Settlement Negotiated by Attorney General
By: - May 11th, 2020There were incidents of racism when a school group visited the Museum of Fine Arts on May 16, 2019. Attorney General Maura Healey has negotiated an agreement between the Museum of Fine Arts and Boston’s Helen Y. David Leadership Academy. The settlment comes with an apology as well as a commitment of $500,000 to address issues of racism
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How Jan Fontein Stabilized the MFA
From Curator of Asiatic Art to Director in 1975
By: - May 17th, 2020Because of the Raphael Incident, Perry T. Rathbone. was forced out as director of the Museum of Fine Arts in 1970. The board president, George Seybolt, who ousted Rathbone, then passed over acting director, Classical curator, Cornelius Vermeule, to unilaterally appoint a dark horse candidate, Merrill Rueppel. That ended with a curatorial coup from which Asiatic curator, Jan Fontein, emerged as acting director in 1975. He calmed troubled waters and acccomplished much through 1987. From April 1983, this is the first of two transcribed interviews.
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MFA's Jan Fontein Two
Addressing Issues of Racism in 1984
By: - May 21st, 2020In 1983 the Museum of FIne Art organized a traveling exhibition A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting: 1760-1910. It toured the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Grand Palais in Paris, as well as being shown at the MFA. Artists and members of Boston's African American community protested that the exhibition did not include artists of color. In this 1984 interview former MFA director, Jan Fontein, discussed negotiatons to include the 19th century artist Henry Osawa Tanner. We also covered gaps in 20th century European and American art.
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Art for TB-Aids Then. Covid-19 Now
Linda Troeller Creates Inspired Pandemic Art Again
By: - May 29th, 2020Linda Troeller exhibited in 2018 at the Griffin Museum in Winchester. Her earlier work focused on TB and AIDS. The Berkshires were a haven for TB patients when the disease was out of control. North Adams had a sanitarium. Gaylordsville was home of a sanitarium recognized nation-wide. Eugene O'Neill spent time there. Now Troeller looks at a new pandemic.
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Monumental Conceptual Artist Christo at 84
It’s a Wrap
By: - Jun 01st, 2020They were known by first names, Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Until her death in 2009, and now his, they astonished the world with virtually imnpossible, monumental, site specific works. The official and bureaucratic opposition to their projects was formidable. Routinely it took years and decades to raise money and overcome obstacles. That all became part of the work. Solving that resistance made the end result all the more astonishing. Their amazing projects will be remembered by the millions who experienced them.
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Former MFA Director Alan Shestack
Served from 1987 to 1993
By: - Jun 11th, 2020On April 14, 2020 Alan Shestack passed away at 81. From 1987 to 1993 he was director of the Museum of Fine Arts. He was notable as a mediator and problem solver. As director he presided over 26 departments with an uneven distribution of resources and power. This interview took place not long after he arrived at the museum.
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Theodore E. Stebbins of the MFA
Former Curator of American Painting
By: - Jun 12th, 2020MFA director Jan Fontein appointed Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. as John Moors Cabot Curator of American Art. For three years he was also head of the departments of American and European painting as well as the department of 20th century art. He acquired 600 works for the museum including 100 from the Lane Collection of American modernism. In terms of acquisitions and exhibitions few curators compare to his impact on the museum. \
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We Are All Contagious
On Line Juried Exhibition
By: - Jun 12th, 2020We Are All Contagious is an on line exhibition of U Mass Dartmouth. It was juried by Nato Thompson the Artistic Director of Philadelphia Contemporary. He started his career at MASS MoCA. Artists respond to COVID-19. Will the art of contagion be heroic, tragic, mythic, humorous? We are authoring our own history and future right now with this online exhibition.
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Joseph Nechvatal’s Art Springs From Algorithms
Viral Venture Online at White Page Gallery
By: - Jun 15th, 2020Long before we had heard of, or even imagined, viruses like Covid-19, Post-Minimal painter, multi-media artist and art theoretician Joseph Nechvatal was generating them. Not the contagious types, but computer-robotic assisted ones.
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Alan Shestack Two
In 1992 the MFA Had an Annual Deficit of $3 Million
By: - Jun 15th, 2020When I interviewed Alan Shestack in 1992 he had been MFA director for five years. It was a time of economic downturn and the museum faced an annual deficit of $3 million. We discussed ways in which the museum might meet this challenge including a relationship with a museum in Nagoya, Japan which it helped to launch and program. He spoke adamantly that selling works to cover costs violated the mission and covenant of museums and their donors.
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Theodore E. Stebbins MFA Two
Pollock's Troubled Queen Among Many Acquisitions
By: - Jun 20th, 2020When John Walsh left for the Getty Museum, and with a hiatus in the contemporary department, Theodore E. Stebbins, chaired three departments. He seized the opportunity to acquire American and European modern and contemporary art. There were huge gaps to fill when works that now command millions were relatively affordable.
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Theodore E. Stebbins of the MFA
Former Curator of American Painting
By: - Jun 22nd, 2020MFA director Jan Fontein first apppointed John Walsh as curator of European Paintings then Theodore E. Stebbins as curator of American Paintings. In this first of our two part coverage Stebbins discusses the M&M Karolik and William H. and Saundra Lane collections. On his watch Stebbins acquired major American, modern and contemporary works. His legacy for the museum and in the field is formidable.
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