Philadelphia Museum of Art - Information : Press Room : Press Releases : 2008

June 4th, 2008

Schedule of New and Upcoming Exhibitions Through Spring 2009

New and Upcoming Exhibitions

Calder Jewelry
July 12, 2008 – October 19, 2008

This exhibition focuses on the artist’s jewelry, which functions as sculpture on a small scale while retaining thelinear yet three-dimensional aspect of the monumental mobiles for which Alexander Calder (1898 - 1976) is known.
Calder Jewelry will consist of approximately 100 objects—necklaces, bracelets, pins, earrings and crowns. The parts that comprise each piece are hammered, shaped, chiseled and composed to mimic sculpture. Photographs of Georgia O’Keeffe, Angelica Huston, and other incorporated into Calder’s jewelry are included in the show, giving the audience a sense of the social dimension surrounding his work.
Organizer: This exhibition is co-organized by the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, and the Calder Foundation, New York.
Curator: Elisabeth Agro, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Decorative Art
Location: The Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, Exhibition Gallery
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Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt
September 16, 2008 - December 14, 2008

This traveling exhibition takes a fresh look at the quilting tradition in Gee’s Bend, Alabama, and introduces new artists and motifs in works ranging from the early twentieth century through 2005. It examines the resurgence of interest in quilting in the Gee’s Bend community, presenting newly discovered quilts from the 1930s to the 1980s along with more recent work by established quilters and the younger generation they have inspired. It documents the development of key quilt patterns—housetop, courthouse steps, flying geese, and strip quilting—through outstanding examples.
Sponsors:This exhibition is supported by a MetLife Foundation Museum and Community Connections grant, and by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Organizers: This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and Tinwood Alliance, Atlanta.
Curators: Dilys Blum, Curator of Costume and Textiles and Kathleen Foster, The Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Curator of American Art
Location: Dorrance Galleries
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African-American Quilts from the Ella King Torrey Collection
Fall 2008

The Ella King Torrey Collection of African American Quilts includes 13 examples by leading Southern quilt makers. The collection was formed between 1981 and 1983 while Ms. Torrey was conducting fieldwork on African American quilt-making with Maud Southwell Wahlman.
Among its highlights are an appliquéd “word quilt” by the Mississippi artist Sarah Mary Taylor (born 1916) and one of her “hand” quilts, a version commissioned for the film The Color Purple. Two quilts in the collection are by Taylor’s mother, Pearlie Posey (1894 – 1984), who in 1980 followed her daughter’s lead and began created rainbow-hued figurative appliqué quilts.
Curator: Dilys Blum, Curator of Costume and Textiles
Location: The Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, Joan Spain Gallery
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Thomas Chambers (1808-1869), American Landscape and Marine Painter
September 27, 2008 - December 28, 2008

In the first major survey of his work, this exhibition will seek to define the artist’s style, which, until recently, has only been represented in surveys of “folk art.”
The exhibition will include approximately 60 objects borrowed from public collections throughout the United States, among them 40 paintings by Chambers and 20 related prints and paintings by his contemporaries. Together, these works will allow audiences to explore Chambers’ role in the development of popular landscape painting in 19th century America.
Curator: Kathleen A. Foster, The Robert McNeil, Jr., Curator of American Art and Director of the Center of American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
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James Castle (1899 - 1977): A Retrospective
October 14, 2008 - January 4, 2009

James Castle (1899 – 1977) is among the many artists who have received growing attention over the past few decades for producing remarkable bodies of work without undergoing formal or conventional training. By all accounts deaf from birth, Castle drew over and over again the living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, barns, sheds, and chicken houses that were his familiar milieu, often combining elements of different locales from memory and introducing surprising juxtapositions of imaginative forms – such as architectonic or totemic “trees” – into these literal renderings of his everyday life. A great deal of the artist’s imagery is rooted in his rural surroundings, especially in the interiors and exteriors of the various structures on the three small farms in Idaho that the Castle family occupied successively during James’s lifetime. He is especially admired for the unique homemade quality of his works and the acute visual sensibility that characterizes his drawings, colored wash pieces, handmade books, “word, sign, and symbol” works, and cardboard paper constructions. This will be the first comprehensive museum exhibition of Castle’s work.
Sponsor:Initial funding for this exhibition is provided by The Henry Luce Foundation and generous individuals.
Curator: Ann Percy, Curator of Drawings
Location: The Berman and Stieglitz Galleries, ground floor

Cézanne and Beyond
February 26, 2009 – mid-May 2009

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839 – 1906) is considered by many to be the father of Modernism and an inspiration to 21st century artists, including Picasso and Matisse. The exhibition will feature over 40 paintings and 20 watercolors and drawings by Cézanne, thoroughly exploring the evolution of his career. Additionally, his work will be displayed alongside paintings by 19 artists whose styles reflect, both visually and poetically, the impact of Cézanne's extraordinary legacy. Among the artists whose work will be included are Max Beckmann, Georges Braque, Pierre Bonnard, Charles Demuth, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Marsden Hartley, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Fernand Léger, Brice Marden, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Giorgio Morandi, Pablo Picasso, Liubov Popova, and Jeff Wall.
Sponsor: This exhibition is made possible by ADVANTA.
Curator: Joseph J. Rishel, The Gisela and Dennis Alter Senior Curator of European Painting before 1900, and Senior Curator of the John G. Johnson Collection and the Rodin Museum at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Location: Dorrance Special Exhibition Galleries
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