Whitney Museum of American Art

From September 23 to November 6, 2021, Forum Gallery will celebrate William Beckman’s 50 years of self-portraiture with an exhibition of seventeen paintings and drawings made between 1976 and 2021. The exhibition, William Beckman: Five Decades of Self-Portraits, will present important examples from each decade beginning with 1976 and will include a group of current paintings, illuminating the Artist’s singular and ongoing contribution to the field.

The National Academy of Design is pleased to announce the launch of the virtual Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné on July 29, in recognition of the anniversary of the artist’s birthday. In this first phase, the catalogue raisonné is focused on American artist Eastman Johnson’s paintings. Subsequent phases will include the artist’s drawings and prints.

The Al Hirschfeld Foundation's latest online exhibition focuses on canines. The show features drawings of some of the most famous dogs in 20th century media. The drawings of Al Hirschfeld stand as one of the most innovative efforts in establishing the visual language of modern art through caricature in the 20th century.

The Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art (mowna) announces a special sneak-peek of the film "pandemic statements," directed by cari ann shim sham* with a pre-show musical performance featuring accordionist Sarah Bellows, and a post show Q&A with the "pandemic statements collaborative” in the mowna party room. The event will take place virtually on June 25th at 8 pm Eastern Time. Tickets for this event are sliding scale, pay what you wish, and include access to the 2021 mowna Biennial exhibition.

This series of black basalt-ware ceramics was created by James Turrell in collaboration with Irish potter Nicholas Mosse of Kilkenny, Ireland.  The ceramics collection absorbs light as opposed to refracting it; pitch black and unyieldingly dark, Lapsed Quaker Ware exerts a visual gravitational pull, drawing in the viewer with a visceral sense of the sublime.

From May 7–October 11, 2021, an exhibition of new and recent works by artist Deana Lawson, winner of the Hugo Boss Prize 2020, will be on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Lawson’s presentation will include large-scale photographs and holograms. In addition, the museum is producing a film exploring Lawson’s practice that will be released in the early fall.

The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) announces Glenn Kaino: In The Light of a Shadow from April 3, 2021 through September 4, 2022. Curated by Denise Markonish, the show will take over MASS MoCA’s signature Building 5 galleries, with a series of immersive installations that create a sense of wonder and hope while issuing an urgent call to action. 

The 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.

When we spoke in 2000 the arts leader Ted Landsmark was director of the Boston Architectural College. He was on leave as chair of the board of the Institute of Contemporary Art but still serving on the board of the MFA. It was a time of transition and change. The ICA was constructing a new building on the waterfront. Its director, Jill Medvedow, was competing for funding with MFA director, Malcolm Rogers. Landsmark argued that they should be working together

Separately at Jewish Settlement houses Jack Levine and Hyman Bloom studied drawing with Harold Zimmerman. In 1929, when Levine was 14, they were instructed at the Fogg Art Museum by Harvard professor, Denman Ross. By the late 1930s, with Karl Zerbe, they gained national attention as Boston Expressionists. After a lapse of decades, through February, Bloom is featured in "Hyman Bloom Matters of Life and Death." The MFA has never given Levine the time of day. In 1986, while making a film with David and Nancy Sutherland, I interviewed Levine.

The Museum of Fine Arts last featured Boston Expressionist Hyman Bloom in a 1959 group show. The current exhibition Hyman Bloom Matters of Life and Death, curated by Erica E. Hirshler, attempts to make up for that lapse. The focus on cadaver paintings and drawings is bold and spectacular. The work is ghastly with haunting beauty. On a national level it is among the year's best museum exhibitions.

A leading scholar of American Art, Patricia Hills curated major exhibitions for the Whitney Museum including "John Singer Sargent."Her books and catalogues range from Eastman Johnson, to Alice Neel and Jacob Lawrence. At Boston University she trained a generation of scholars and curators. As a Marxist she has been particularly involved in social justice projects.

During a recent road trip we visited museums in Montreal, Ottowa and Toronto. We noted different strategies to intergate First Nations artists into special exhibitions and permanent collection galleries. A third of the exhibition space of the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto features First Nations artists. With an unfavorable comparison only a handful of American museums have a commitment to feature Native American art and culture.

The Warhol exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art leads you through the commercial illustrations, personal drawings, paintings, prints, photos, silkscreens, films, videos, music production, his Factory years and more. The last galleries show his giant Mao painting, works in collaboration with Jean-Michel Basquiat, and the 35-foot mural titled Camouflage Last Supper 1986, a rendition of the Last Supper under camouflage print.

Former MIT/CAVS Fellow, Ellen Kozak, and composer Scott D. Miller are presenting a 4-Channel Video Installation at the Hudson River Museum until September 9. The summer exhibition also includes monumental abstract drawings by Christine Hiebert as well as museum owned etchings that are titled: Donald Judd: Variations on a Theme.

To launch A New Vision for the Berkshire Museum it plans to sell 40 key works for some $60 miillion. That's a pot of gold but comes at a terrible cost to the heritage, legacy and cultural branding of the Berkshires. Van Shiields and the museum board insist that there is no other option. That disrespect raises questions regarding stewardship of the 40,000 works in the collection including 2,395 fine art pieces.

The renowned former Whitney Museum director, David A. Ross, in an exclusive statement posted to Berkshire Fine Arts strongly opposes plans initiated by the Berkshire Museum. “This is a sad affair. Perhaps the board, if unwilling to raise funds in the way all museums have to, should resign (along with its feckless director). My feeling is it should merge administratively with another educational non-profit in the region, and then begin the process of stabilization. It would be preferable to see the museum close for a few years of re-organization, than to forever destroy the core of its irreplaceable art collection.”

Members of the JACK Quartet are scattered across the eighth floor exhibit space at the Whitney Museum in which many Alexander Calder mobiles hang and stand. In the center of the room on the south wall, cellist Jay Campbell and violinist Austin Wulliman are conventionally seated with their music stands before them. They do not seem to notice violinist Christopher Otto who stands at the east entrance, only a music stand dividing him from a roaming, and finally seated and standing-still audience. At another entrance Jay Pickford Richards, violist, is completely in his own world, oblivious to in your face cameras, and the wandering audience. John Cage wrote the Quartet they will perform, not for a quartet, but for four soloists.

This think piece explores the difference between movies and cinema. In a compelling overview Kempf states that "I go to a lot of movies for a variety of reasons: to learn about other worlds/people/times through fictions and documentaries, to measure the zeitgeist, to ease a 100°+ summer day, but my primary desire is to experience the art of cinema, a remarkable art that, even more than stage, is collaborative and incorporates the entire constellation of the arts."

The Whitney Museum of American Art was founded in 1931 and opened its first of several venues in 1931. Initially American art was viewed as inferior to the School of Paris. That shifted after WWII with the ascent of the New York School. Early on the museum mounted Annuals which eventually evolved into Biennials. They have long been regarded as reflecting the latest developments in the field. With 63 participating artists the 2017 Whitney Biennial (March 17 to June 1) continues that tradition.

For 24 years Carl Belz was the director of the Rose Art Museum where he was a champion of regional artists with an emphasis on women. There was an annual major exhibition sponsored by Lois Foster who was later instrumental in his ouster when she and her husband Henry were the primary donors of an addition in their name designed by Graham Gund. Belz passed away recently at the age of 78.

When Stefan and Linda Stux, with a partner, opened a gallery on Newbury Street in Boston in 1980 it was a year before they made a sale. The partner left and they continued to support the gallery while working full time jobs. His brother asked how long he intended to maintain his "museum." The answer was "forever." But now that day has come with the closing of the New York gallery after some 35 years of ups and downs. Stefan and Linda had an enormous impact during the era of Boston's cultural revolution in the 1980s.

For years midcentury magic realist Paul Cadmus and other artists of his generation were neglected by the Whitney Museum. Now, in the inaugural exhibition of its new meatpacking facility, titled "America Is Hard to See," Cadmus and his peers return in force.

Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist is a full-scale exhibit of about 45 of Motley's paintings now on view at the Chicago Cultural Center. Along the corridor leading to the gallery is a display of information about Motley's life and work. Jazz age music plays on the gallery sound system. Prior to Chicago the exhibition was on view at the LA Country Museum of Art. The next stop if the Whitney Museum of American Art

While a graduate student at Brown University, in 1970, the art historian Edmund Barry Gaither was recruited for a shared appointment as adjunct curator of the Museum of Fine Arts and working with Elma Lewis as director of the National Center for African American Artists. He still holds those positions. In this first part of an extensive interview Gaither describes jumping in to curate the major MFA exhibition African American Artists from New York and Boston. He was soon multi- tasking while being pressured by a diverse range of individuals and groups.