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Speed Art Museum www.speedmuseum.org Exhibitions: Renoir to Chagall: Paris and the Allure of Color Sacred Air Breath of Life: Selections from the Native-American Collection Howard Hodgkin Prints and Process Kentucky Antiques from the Noe Collection: A Gift to the Commonwealth Renoir to Chagall: Paris and the Allure of Color This major exhibition features paintings by the great French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masters and related artists dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among the who’s who of artists included are Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Mary Cassatt, Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Georges Braque, and Marc Chagall. The exhibition explores the broad range of subjects that inspired these artists, from the cafes, racetracks, ballet and other aspects of modern Parisian life to landscapes, harbor and beach scenes, city views, portraits, and still lifes. The diverse subjects and styles of these artists are unified by their bold explorations of form and color. Renoir to Chagall: Paris and the Allure of Color is comprised of more than 80 paintings on loan from the renowned Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection of the Dixon Gallery & Gardens in Memphis, Tennessee, and a number of important works from both the Speed Art Museum’s collection and private and institutional collections in Kentucky. Admission is $5 for museum members / $15 for non-members. Children 17 and under get in free with paid adult ticket. Renoir to Chagall: Paris and the Allure of Color has been organized by the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, in association with The Speed Art Museum. Renoir to Chagall: Paris and the Allure of Color is presented with support from Hikes Point Paint - Benjamin Moore.
Sacred Air, Breath of Life: Selections from the Native-American Collection, presents highlights from the museum’s distinctive holdings of Native-American artifacts and related historic photographs, paintings, and drawings. The core of the Speed’s collection was gathered by Frederic Weygold in the first decades of the twentieth century and represents the tribes that inhabited the central region of the Great Plains. A longtime Louisville resident, Weygold was an artist, ethnographer, lecturer, and linguist. The exhibition features a ceremonial pipe once owned by the renowned Sac and Fox leader Black Hawk; a beaded and painted Lakota Sioux war shirt, which honored the owner’s status and achievements as a warrior; and an eagle-feather headdress. Also on view will be fine examples of Pueblo pottery by Maria Martinez, as well as vintage photographs documenting Native-American life and culture. One of Britain’s most important and prolific painters and printmakers, Howard Hodgkin (b. 1932) has consistently pushed the painterly potential of printmaking. Like his paintings, his prints often refer to memories and private experiences, but deliberately avoid anything illustrational. In this group of prints from the Paul Chellgren Collection, the artist uses a process (began in the 1980s) in which he coats an etching plate with a resistant substance to produce painterly brushstrokes; a gritty paste is added to the plate, bringing rich valleys of texture. While Hodgkin’s work feels spontaneous, they are the result of an extensive process of thoughtful and considered reflection and layering. In this selection of prints, compressed gestures, complex textures, a voluptuous palette, and a dynamic interchange of light and dark, his inspirational subjects -- Venice in the morning to a spring day in the woods - beautifully resonate. The artist has served as a trustee of both the Tate Gallery and the National Gallery, London and in 1992, was knighted for his services to the arts.
This group exhibition, which includes works on paper, painting, and sculpture from the Speed’s permanent collection, explores the Minimalist aesthetic of austerity, repetitive and serial geometric forms, and industrial or non-traditional materials. Donald Judd (American, 1928-1994), whose sleek cubic and rectilinear works in the late 1960s redefined the direction of postwar sculpture, disliked the word Minimalist, calling himself “an empiricist” when pressed. In his influential 1965 essay, Specific Objects, he announced that the “new three-dimensional work is not a painting or sculpture, but a space to move into...real space the viewer inhabits.” Works in this installation, which includes Frank Stella’s iconic painting from his Irregular Polygon Series (mid-1960s), Richard Tuttle’s eccentric and poetic drawings (mid-1970s), Haim Steinbach’s mixed-media assemblage (1986), and Lucky DeBellevue’s awkwardly elegant chenille stem sculpture (1994), explore the relationship of the viewer - “the body” (in art historical terms) -- to the work of art and the space they both “inhabit.” Examining the manifestations of the Minimalist aesthetic since the 1960s will offer a renewed appreciation of its importance and relevance to the story of the transformative power of contemporary art. Over 100 Objects of Kentucky Art Donated By Esteemed Collectors Robert and Norma Noe The Speed Art Museum is pleased to announce one of the most important gifts in the history of the Museum and the largest donation of Kentucky art ever received by the Speed. This extensive collection includes 119 examples of early Kentucky furniture, paintings, silhouettes, textiles, ceramics, and silver. Artworks from the Noe collection are currently on view in the exhibition Kentucky Antiques from the Noe Collection: A Gift to the Commonwealth. Dr. Charles L. Venable, Speed Director and CEO remarks, “The gift of the Noe Collection more than doubles the Museum’s holdings of Kentucky-made decorative arts and paintings from the nineteenth century, giving the Speed the best collection of this kind anywhere. We now will be able to provide visitors with an unparalleled opportunity to experience and enjoy the state’s artistic heritage as never before. We are extremely grateful to the Noes for both their generosity and vision.” Echoing Dr. Venable, the Speed’s Curator of Decorative Arts and Design, Scott Erbes, notes, “Bob and Norma Noe’s love of their home state and their passion for collecting led them to find and preserve great early Kentucky antiques. The masterworks they acquired illustrate the wonderful visual diversity that characterized nineteenth-century Kentucky. Through the Noes’ generosity, these treasures—the shared legacy of generations of artists, artisans, owners, descendants, and collectors—will remain accessible for generations to come.” Exhibited through the years at the Speed and other museums, the Noe Collection is widely recognized as one of the finest private collections of nineteenth-century Kentucky decorative arts in the country. This donation represents a landmark in the 86-year history of the Museum. In 2007 the Noes promised to give their collection to the Speed over several years. With the museum’s long-anticipated expansion underway, the Noes decided to fulfill their promise ahead of schedule so that the public could begin to enjoy the collection. Following the completion of the Speed’s expansion project in 2016, additional space will be available for exhibiting early Kentucky art. Through the Noes’ generosity, the Speed has dramatically advanced towards its goal of becoming the nation’s collection of record for important Kentucky art and design. The Noe Collection will also be integrated into the museum’s Kentucky Online Arts Resource (www.KOAR.org), an image database devoted to documenting Kentucky art. About Robert and Norma Noe On collecting Kentucky art Robert Noe remarked, “There is an emotional reason for collecting Kentucky objects. We are Kentuckians and that was here and very few people were collecting it at the time, so we decided to become Kentucky collectors.” He went on to say, “Most of our family has stayed in Kentucky. They have lived here and that’s why we’re here and so we have a love of the state…a connection with the state that goes much deeper than just collecting antiques. It’s here, it’s in our soul.” Over the next thirty years, the Noes built their landmark collection of nineteenth-century Kentucky furniture, paintings, silhouettes, textiles, ceramics, and silver. Eventually, they decided they wanted to share with others the joy of discovery and appreciation they had experienced, leading them to promise their collection to the Speed. About the Noe Collection The Noes’ gift also includes five sugar chests and two sugar desks. These distinctive regional forms were designed to store and protect sugar, a costly commodity in early nineteenth-century Kentucky. Placed in the dining room or parlor for all to see, sugar chests and desks kept the sugar close at hand for sweetening social lubricants like tea, coffee, and alcoholic drinks. The Noes acquired many richly inlaid examples, including one that descended in the Madison County area, one of the state’s more prosperous counties during the early nineteenth century. Along with a number of painted portraits, the Noes’ gift includes remarkable cut-paper silhouettes of many important nineteenth-century Kentuckians. Among them: Cassius Clay (1810-1903), cousin of Senator Henry Clay. A vehement opponent of slavery, Cassius Clay published an abolitionist newspaper. His views led to a duel and one attempt on his life. Clay’s elegant silhouette was created in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1845 by the prominent American silhouette artist, William Henry Brown (1808-1883). About the Exhibition Kentucky Antiques from the Noe Collection also features a portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Matthew Harris Jouett (1788-1827). The painting is a copy after one created by Gilbert Stuart. Jouett studied with Stuart in Boston for several months between the summer and early fall of 1816. When Jouett returned to Kentucky, he not only produced portraits of Kentuckians, but made additional copies of Jefferson’s likeness.
In mid December, the Speed will welcome a new experimental gallery area located on the museum’s main level sculpture court. Quick Start Story Gallery is an exciting new gallery initiative designed to let our visitors have fun exploring stories in the museum’s collection. Quick Start is to serve as a fun “starter” gallery for a casual family visit. Our idea is to make a family visit to the museum into a fun ride, letting our families discover the stories behind the art, talk with each other about what you see and make up your own stories to unlock a work of art. <="" i=""> features works by James Tissot, Jacob Lawrence, Henry Moore, Ed Hamilton and others. The gallery will feature easy and fun discussion and activity suggestions - for you and your family, engaging family audio spots you can listen to on your cell phone, and hands-on and minds-on activities for families to bring the artwork to life. Included with Museum general admission. |
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