Editors Please Note:

New and Upcoming Exhibitions

• Art in Revolutionary Philadelphia
  April 17 through fall 2010
  
  

  As the political climate in Philadelphia grew increasingly charged throughout the 1770s, art became currency. Some Philadelphians who supported the revolutionary cause gave art in payment of taxes to help fund the war. Loyalists to the British crown clung to their houses and art, including furnishings, until they were ultimately confiscated or, if portable, joined their owners in exile. After the war, art and furnishings were sold at public auctions.

  In this exhibition of revolutionary-era objects from the Museum's collection, the elegant Powel House Period Room (Gallery 287) will be re-imagined as part of British General William Howe's encampment in Philadelphia from September 1777 to May 1778, when the British occupied the home of Elizabeth and Samuel Powel (The Powels were relegated to living in the servants' quarters). Next door, some 20 objects from the Museum's collection will be on view, including rare works from the Meschianza celebration of May 1778—the raucous final farewell party thrown by the British as they left Philadelphia—including a silver tankard from 1788 and a porcelain vessel showing the Penn family coat of arms. This exhibition of artworks and household items used during the 1770s features objects in the Museum's collection that, while usually admired for their artistic virtues, depict the role art played in the lives of Philadelphians during the American Revolution.

  Curator: Alexandra Kirtley, Associate Curator of American Art
  Location: Galleries 286 and 287

  This exhibition is made possible by the Center for American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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• Visions of Venice: Eighteenth-Century Prints from the Collection
  April 24 – July 18, 2010
  
  

  Venice in the 18th century was a leading cultural center, where painting and sculpture, printmaking and drawing flourished alongside music and theater, fashion and design, attracting travelers from around the world. Prompted by this thriving tourist trade, Venetian artists created lively prints of the city and its people for aristocratic visitors to take as souvenirs.

  The exhibition features more than 70 works by artists such as Canaletto, Marco Ricci, Giovanni Battista, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, and Pietro Longhi. The images celebrate the life and beauty of the city with the characteristic inventiveness of the Venetian Rococo style. Topographical or imaginary views of Venice (vedute) dominated the market, recording unique architecture as well as major ceremonies and festivals. Capricci, blending fantasy and reality in spirited scenes of classical ruins, were also popular, while genre prints or representations of everyday life among all social classes were sought after by tourists and Venetians alike. The exhibition is further enlivened by a small selection of drawings and paintings by notable Venetian masters.

  Curators: Sarah Cantor, The Dorothy J. del Bueno Curatorial Fellow in the Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, and John Ittmann, Curator of Prints
  Location: Berman Gallery, ground floor

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• Notations/Forms of Contingency: New York and Turin, 1960s – 1970s
  April 24 – September, 2010
  
  

  In collaboration with the Sonnabend Collection, New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art presents an installation charting the changing attitudes toward sculptural practice in a formative period that marked the shift from the bound forms of Mimimalism to the eccentric, elemental, energetic, and expressive forms of post-minimalism and Arte Povera. Forms of Contingency will include seminal works by artists engaged in the radical reinvention of art in the two cultural epicenters of New York and Turin, including Eva Hesse, Robert Morris, Mel Bochner, Alan Sonfist, Bruce Nauman, Mario Merz, Jannis Kounellis, Barry Le Va, Giovanni Anselmo, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Robert Smithson, and Lawrence Weiner.

  About the “Notations” Series:
  Forms of Contingency has been organized in collaboration with the Sonnabend Collection. The exhibition is part of an ongoing series of gallery installations titled “Notations,” named after the 1968 book by the American composer, writer, and visual artist John Cage, who was widely celebrated for his experimental approach to the arts. Cage’s Notations was an international and interdisciplinary anthology of scores by avant-garde musicians, with contributions from visual artists and writers. It was also an exhibition in book form, in which the scores doubled as drawings. The Notations series at the Museum serves as a flexible tool to explore contemporary art.

  Curator: Erica Battle, Project Curatorial Assistant
  Location: Alter Gallery 176, Modern and Contemporary Galleries

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• Live Cinema/Histories in Motion: Jennifer Levonian, Martha Colburn, Joshua Mosley
  April 30 – July 25, 2010
  
  April 30 – May 31, 2010: Take Your Picture with a Puma (2010), by Jennifer Levonian. Stop-motion animation using watercolors and collage. 7:00 minutes.
  June 1 – June 27, 2010: Join the Freedom Force (2009), by Martha Colburn. Mixed media animation. 3:56 minutes.
  June 29 – July 25, 2010: International (2010), by Joshua Mosely. Mixed-media Animation, 5.5 minutes.

  Contemporary artists increasingly employ animation to examine formal elements of studio-based practice in narrative contexts that address personal and communal experiences. Combining paper cut-outs, collages, drawings, watercolors, and sculptures with stop-action techniques and computer technology, Histories in Motion presents animated films by three young artists with Philadelphia ties, as well as a selection of the sculptures, collages and works on paper used to create them. Each artist's animation and accompanying artworks will be on view for approximately one month.

  Take your Picture with a Puma (2010), by Philadelphia-based artist Jennifer Levonian, uses autobiographical details and French new-wave cinema references to create an intricate story set in Mexico. Levonian uses cut-paper animations to explore the ambivalence of everyday life, transforming them into bizarre and uncanny occurrences. Her works engage with filmmaking as a medium, and at times incorporate direct references to classic cinema in surreal juxtapositions that have the effect of transporting the viewer to a universe where popular culture provides a common language to communicate emotions in a way that animated characters cannot. Take your Picture with a Puma will be on view April 30 – May 31, 2010, with accompanying watercolors by Levonian.

  Martha Colburn's Join the Freedom Force (2009), a fast-paced collage of images inspired by street protests around the world, utilizes the language and materials of filmmaking to comment on popular culture, consumerism, politics, and sexuality. Through a collage of live-action (paint-on-glass) animations, found footage and documentary filmmaking techniques, Colburn creates a mesmerizing portrait of contemporary issues expressed in the public realm. Samples of Colburn's elaborately layered collages will accompany Join the Freedom Force (June 1 – June 27, 2010).

  Joshua Mosley's International (2010) focuses on two historical figures, the American builder and philanthropist George Brown and Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek. Using stop-motion animation, the Philadelphia-based artist constructs an imaginary conversation that identifies Brown and Hayek's perspectives on how a nation's ideal economic and social order should evolve. International will be on view June 29 – July 25, 2010, together with a sculpture installation by Mosley.

  Histories in Motion will be accompanied by a program of public events, including an opening musical and visual performance by Martha Colburn on April 30.

  Live Cinema is a series of programs in the Video Gallery of the Museum that explores the vast production of single-channel video and filmwork by a diverse group of local, national, and international artists. In the last decade an ever-increasing number of contemporary artists have appropriated these mediums as an artistic outlet, in a dialogue with the early video and Super 8 practices of the 60s and the tradition of experimental filmmaking. Each program of the Live Cinema series focuses on a specific aspect of this work, in order to both map and analyze this important facet of contemporary art production. Live Cinema programs are accompanied by a brochure in which writers discuss the works exhibited, and also by public lectures program.

  Curator: Adelina Vlas, Assistant Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art
  Location: Galleries 178 and 179, 1st floor This exhibition is made possible by The Women's Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Edna W. Andrade Fund of The Philadelphia Foundation, and the Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam.

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• Water Work
  May 15 – July 18, 2010
  
  This exhibition features images in which water is the principal theme, highlighted in a selection of modern and contemporary prints, drawings, and photographs from the permanent collection. Some 15 works will be on view, ranging from Ellsworth Kelly's brush and ink drawing Reflections in the Seine (1950), to Untitled (after Tomb of the Diver, Paestum) (2002), a crayon and charcoal drawing on blue paper by Robert Moskowitz. Works by artists including Ed Ruscha, Roni Horn, Robert Moskowitz, Vija Celmins, and Georgia O'Keeffe will also be on view.

  Curator: Innis H. Shoemaker, The Audrey and William H. Helfand Senior Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs
  Location: Stieglitz Gallery, ground floor

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• Late Renoir
  June 17 – September 6, 2010
  
  Focusing on the final three decades of his career, Late Renoir is the first exhibition to survey the achievement of the great Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) during the decades before his death. Some 80 of the artist's paintings, sculpture, and drawings will be on view, accompanied by a selection of works by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Bonnard, and others who were inspired by the master. A landmark exhibition, Late Renoir examines new directions that the artist explored several decades after he and others such as Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro created the new style of painting known as Impressionism. This new and widely admired phase in Renoir's career propelled him into the modern age and, at the same time, enabled him to recapture a classical past with expressive brushwork and a palette of sensuous colors that were both lyrical and decorative.

  Late Renoir includes major works on loan from public and private collections in Europe, the United States, and Japan. It will be organized chronologically, enabling the visitor to appreciate the evolution of Renoir's late style, beginning with portraits and genre scenes and examining his full embrace of the nude and mythological subjects.

  Itinerary: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (February 14-May 9, 2010); Philadelphia Museum of Art (June 17-September 6, 2010)
  Curator: Jennifer Thompson, The Gloria and Jack Drosdick Associate Curator, European Painting Before 1900
  Catalogue: The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.
  Location: Dorrance Galleries

  This exhibition is supported in part by The Annenberg Foundation Fund for Major Exhibitions and by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Major foundation support for this exhibition is provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts and The Robert Lehman Foundation. Additional support is provided by The Women's Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Bank of America; Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Abramson, Barbara B. and Theodore R. Aronson, Maude de Schauensee, Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Linck, Martha Hamilton Morris and I. Wistar Morris III, Mr. and Mrs. John M. Thalheimer, Harriet and Larry Weiss, and other generous contributors to the Renoir Salon; and other individual donors. Promotional support provided by NBC 10 WCAU; Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau (PCVB) and the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC); The Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News, and Philly.com; and Amtrak.

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• John G. Johnson and the Theatrum Pictorium of David Teniers II
  June 12 through fall 2010
  
  The John G. Johnson collection, assembled by the Philadelphia lawyer who bequeathed it to the city of Philadelphia in 1914, is considered one of the finest samples of paintings collected by an individual in the United States. In his collecting of Old Master works, Johnson was frequently unorthodox. While others sought after the peasant scenes and village fairs by renowned Flemish master David Teniers II, Johnson chose five of Teniers' sketches for his 1660 Theatrum Pictorium, the world's first fully illustrated and printed collection catalogue.

  This grand quasi-scientific project was undertaken to publish the Italian paintings collection of his master and patron, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. Teniers created small oil sketches of 243 of the paintings, noting the dimensions at the bottom. These sketches were then engraved by printmakers in Antwerp. The five sketches show Teniers translating Wilhelm Leopold's Italian treasures into his own lighthearted, precise style, which became very influential in the following century. The sketches, completed catalogue and other related works will be on view to illustrate Teniers' position at the nexus of art and science in 17th century Flanders culture.

  Curator: Lloyd DeWitt, Associate Curator of European Painting Before 1900
  Location: Johnson Study Gallery 273
  

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• Plain Beauty: Korean White Porcelain/Photographs by Bohnchang Koo
  June 19 – September 26, 2010
  
  White porcelains have been produced in Korea since the beginning in the 15th century and have often reflected the ideals and taste of the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) which promoted the virtues of a frugal and restrained lifestyle. The production of porcelain continued throughout the early 20th century, yielding vessels of diverse functions, sizes, and shapes. In China, the preference for plain white wares was long ago replaced by lavishly decorated vessels with flamboyant, multicolored patterns, and as a result monochrome wares remained a uniquely Korean phenomenon.

  This exhibition explores the elegant beauty of plain white Korean porcelain with objects drawn from the Museum's collections and loans from other collections in the United States. The works range from a small water dropper to an imposing globular “moon jar.” The porcelains are complemented by an installation of large-scale photographs by Bohnchang Koo (b. 1953), which capture the subtle beauty of undecorated white porcelains. Koo visited museums within and outside Korea to develop the almost portrait-like images, which feature off-center compositions, sectional details, and subtle pink tones.

  Curator: Hyunsoo Woo, The Maxine and Howard Lewis Associate Curator of Korean Art
  Location: Levy Gallery, Perelman Building

  This exhibition is made possible by the Korea Foundation. Additional support is provided by The James and Agnes Kim Foundation Endowment for Korean Art and Frank S. Bayley.

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• To Love, Honor and Obey? Stories of Italian Renaissance Marriage Chests
  Ongoing from July 3, 2010
  
  In Renaissance Italy, betrothal and marriage were celebrated with a variety of events as well as commemorative works of art. Often elaborate, these objects marked the joining of a couple while symbolizing wealth and demonstrating alliances between powerful families.

  Particularly significant were cassoni, large storage chests produced in pairs and typically used to hold the bride's dowry. In mid-15th-century Florence, these chests were sometimes paraded through the city in wedding processions, and were designed to complement other furnishings made for the new couple's bedchamber This exhibition includes two complete chests and related painted panels in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, all produced in Tuscany in the mid-to late-15th century. To Love, Honor and Obey? considers the contexts for which marriage chests were made and used, techniques em¬ployed by craftsmen in producing them, and the sources and meanings of their decoration. Usually representing moral exemplars intended for the education of the married couple—particularly the wife—the tales and images that decorate cassoni help illuminate Italian Renaissance art, life and society

  Curator: Jack Hinton, Assistant Curator of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture
  Location: Gallery 209

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• Hanging Around: Modern and Contemporary Lighting from the Permanent Collection
  July 17 – October 10, 2010
  
  Since the invention of the electric light in the early 20th century, designers have been experimenting with various ways to dress up the light bulb. Lighting fixtures—and particularly hanging lamps—received attention from designers such as American George Nelson, who in the decades after WWII, responded to a demand for fixtures that were both aesthetically functional and modern. This exhibition of some 20 hanging lamps drawn from the Museum's collection of modern and contemporary design explores the variety of ways designers used materials and technology to find new ways of diffusing and reflecting light.

  Artists such as Poul Henningsen, a Danish industrial designer and architect, experimented with unusual designs, creating objects such as PH Artichoke lamp (1958), composed of staggered and stacked reflectors in a configuration that resembles, as its name suggests, an artichoke. Others experimented with materials, some of them new, like plastic, and others merely low-tech materials adapted for a new purpose, like Italian artist Bruno Munari's Falkland lamp (1964), an elegant undulating column of elasticized fabric. In recent years, designers have experimented with new technologies, producing imaginative creations such as German designer Ingo Maurer's “Wo bist du, Edison?” (“Where Are you, Edison?”), made in 2003. One of Maurer's most technically advanced works, “Wo bist du, Edison?” features a 360-degree holographic image of a light bulb hanging above the shade, hidden in a socket in the shape of Thomas Edison's profile.

  Curator: Donna Corbin, Associate Curator of European Decorative Arts
  Location: Collab Gallery, Perelman Building

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• An Eakins Masterpiece Restored: Seeing “The Gross Clinic” Anew
  July 24, 2010 – January 9, 2011
  
  The Gross Clinic of 1875 by the Philadelphia painter Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) is among the most celebrated and imposing masterpieces of 19th-century American art. This exhibition will invite visitors to see the painting—its creation, reception, and changes it has undergone through the years—in new ways. The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, joint owners of The Gross Clinic, in late 2008 initiated a plan to research the condition of the painting and assess the benefits of cleaning and restoration. The resulting study of The Gross Clinic and numerous other Eakins paintings identified preservation needs and made clear the potential of a new restoration to address problems caused by an insensitive 1920s cleaning. On July 24, 2010, The Gross Clinic, newly restored in the paintings conservation studio of the Philadelphia Museum of Art using extensive recent findings about the painting’s original appearance, will be placed on view as the centerpiece of this exhibition. As a result of research and conservation work, audiences will be able to see this masterpiece looking more as it did in Eakins’s day than it has at any time since the early 1920s.

  In the exhibition, the history and initial reaction to The Gross Clinic will be explored, using materials from the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, including photographs, didactic panels, and responses from viewers in the 1870s ranging from horror and revulsion to awe-struck praise. Three surviving preparatory studies for the painting and the recent X-radiograph of The Gross Clinic will be presented to provide insight into Eakins’s painting process, supplemented by texts explaining the artist’s commitment to the academic ideal of correct pictorial tone and color. The exhibition also includes a documentary film produced by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, exploring period and personal artistic ideas to which Eakins was responding as a painter, ways he used his materials and techniques in pursuit of specific effects, and the cause of changes to many of his paintings—including The Gross Clinic—in the decades after his death in 1916.

  This exhibition will explore the remarkable painting’s history and include such supplementary works as The Agnew Clinic of 1889 (owned by the University of Pennsylvania,) the artist’s second great clinic painting, as well as his Portrait of Dr. Benjamin H. Rand of 1874 (Crystal Bridges Museum), which was Eakins’s first full-length portrait of a doctor. Visitors will have the opportunity to see The Gross Clinic and The Agnew Clinic side by side, as the two landmark depictions of American surgery have not been shown in the same room before.

  The Gross Clinic is owned jointly by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, thanks to the successful campaign launched by the two institutions in 2006 to keep the painting in Philadelphia when it was offered for sale by Thomas Jefferson University. The Gross Clinic will return to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts following the exhibition.

  The exhibition is made possible by Joan and John Thalheimer, and by Wachovia, a Wells Fargo Company. The conservation of Thomas Eakins’s "The Gross Clinic" was generously supported by The Richard C. von Hess Foundation.

  Curators: Mark S. Tucker, Vice Chair of Conservation and The Aronson Senior Conservator of Paintings, and Kathleen A. Foster, The Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Senior Curator of American Art, and Director, Center for American Art; documentary film by Suzanne Penn, Conservator of Paintings, Philadelphia Museum of Art
  Location: Perelman Building, Pennsylvania Gallery

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• Picturing the West: Yokohama Prints 1859-1870s
  August 28 - November 14, 2010
  
  Cut off from the outside world by a policy of isolation enforced by the ruling Tokugawa shogunate, Japanese citizens were naturally curious about the Westerners who arrived on their shores following Commodore Matthew Perry's historic voyages to Japan in 1853–1854. This fascination led to the flourishing of hundreds of color woodcuts portraying the foreigners who came to the country after Japan opened its borders to trade with the United States, France, Britain, the Netherlands and Russia at the end of the 1850s.

  The exhibition of approximately 90 woodcuts, selected from the Museum's extensive collection of 19th-century Japanese prints, showcases the rising interest in the dress, habits, and technologies of the newly arrived Westerners. The prints on view depict the coal-powered steam vessels known as “Black Ships,” hoop-skirted women and men in top hats, as well as imaginary views of the foreigners' home countries. The Westerners residing in the burgeoning Japanese city of Yokohama were especially popular subjects.

  Once a small fishing village, Yokohama was completely transformed into a major international port for trade as foreigners set up their own districts and the city expanded with an unprecedented flow of travelers and goods. Print publishers sent artists to Yokohama to make sketches on site and supplemented eye-witness accounts with imagery borrowed from illustrations in Western journals and newspapers. The resulting prints are a curious blend of convention and novelty, where traditional color woodcut techniques and methods of production are combined with new subjects and sources of imagery.

  Curator: Shelley R. Langdale, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings
  Location: Berman and Stieglitz Galleries, ground floor
  

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• Eakins on Paper: Drawings and Watercolors from the Collection
  September – December 2010
  
  In honor of the 150th anniversary of the Philadelphia Sketch Club, a selection of 10 rarely-seen drawings and watercolors will survey the early work of Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), considered as one of the great draftsmen in American art. Life-class drawings in charcoal from his student days during the 1860s at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts illustrate the central focus on figure drawing that inspired the formation of the Sketch Club that same decade. After study in Paris from 1866 to 1870, Eakins returned to Philadelphia to share his expertise with the club's members, offering critiques at their life-class sessions in the 1870s before he began to teach at the Academy. Other examples of Eakins' figure subjects in pen and ink and watercolor on view will include a rare wash drawing of Dr. Samuel Gross from 1875, based on the image in The Gross Clinic, and unusual tracings from his own photographs in the early 1880s, documenting his scientific interest in human anatomy. These drawings will be displayed alongside figure subjects and portraits in oil, and in conjunction with the special exhibition on The Gross Clinic (on view in the Perelman Building), to demonstrate Eakins's reputation as a master of realism.

  Curators: Kathleen Foster, The Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Senior Curator of American Art
  Location: Provident National Bank Gallery 118

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• Desert Jewels: North African Jewelry and Photography from the Xavier Guerrand-Hermès Collection
  September 4– December 5, 2010
  
  Three decades of objects collected by Xavier Guerrand-Hermès of the renowned Paris-based fashion empire illuminate the diversity and beauty of traditional North African jewelry design. Including some 80 pieces of jewelry and nearly 30 late-19th- and early-20th-century photographs by artists from Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Egypt, and Tunisia, Desert Jewels features ornate necklaces, bracelets, rings, and earrings, most of which have never been publicly displayed. Designers working with inventive combinations of silver, coral, amber, coins, and semi-precious stones highlight cultural threads shared by many North African societies, while exploring local variations in materials and motifs.

  North African jewelry came to the attention of Western collectors in the 19th century when archaeological monuments in the region were being explored, visited, and in some cases, pillaged. The jewelry was also captured in photographs by artists including the Scotsman George Washington Wilson, the Neurdine brothers from France, and the Turkish photographer Pascal Sabah, who visited the region and photographed landscapes, architecture, markets, and people adorned in their jewels. Some of these images were used for postcards, while other remained hidden in little-known collections. This exhibition is organized by the Museum for African Art in New York.

  Curator: Dilys Blum, The Jack M. and Annette Y. Friedland Senior Curator of Costume and Textiles
  Location: Spain Gallery, Perelman Building Hyunsoo Woo, The Maxine and Howard

  Desert Jewels: North African Jewelry and Photography from the Xavier Guerrand-Hermès Collection is organized by the Museum for African Art, New York, and supported, in part, by the Robert Lehman Foundation.

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• Mark Cohen: Strange Evidence
  Fall 2010
  
  Working primarily in small Pennsylvania rust-belt cities like Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, where he lives, Mark Cohen photographs people and places encountered at random. This exhibition of some 50 of Cohen's black-and-white and color photographs made during the past 40 years reveal elemental aspects of human behavior and urban life, charting transformations that have occurred in Pennsylvania cities and demonstrating that even the most subjective photographs can reveal historical truths.

  Part of a generation of street photographers that includes Robert Frank, William Klein, and Lee Friedlander, Cohen works in a close-up, graphically bold style, focusing on odd suburban enigmas often featuring children from around his home town. His images are often unsettling, showing us a world filled with anxieties, accidents, and desires. While they seem to reveal aspects of human behavior and urban life, they are far from objective documents, as he often employs an aggressive flash and radical cropping. The resulting images are clearly shaped as much by Cohen's encounters with his subjects as by the people and places themselves.

  Curator: Peter Barberie, The Brodsky Curator of Photographs
  Location: Levy Gallery, Perelman Building
  

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• Michelangelo Pistoletto: From One to Many, 1956 – 1974
  November 2, 2010 – January 16, 2011
  
  

  Michelangelo Pistoletto (Italian, b. 1933) is among the most influential European artists living today, and as a founder of Arte Povera in the 1960s, is credited for having played an integral role in introducing many contemporary participatory practices to the United States. As the first focused survey of works by Pistoletto in this country in over two decades, the exhibition of more than 100 works will place Pistoletto's work in the context of post-war Italy and Western Europe, while relating his work to developments in American art post-1960, including Pop Art, Minimalism and Conceptual Art. It will also emphasize the participatory aspect of his work, and will include loans from both American and European public and private collections, many of which have never been exhibited before in the United States.

  Pistoletto began exploring the tension between the individual human figure and the anonymous spectator at the beginning of his career. After first portraying himself in his paintings, he then sought to include the spectator through the progressive use of increasingly reflective surfaces, such as the Quadri specchianti (Mirror Paintings), incorporating the viewer's image into the work as a fundamental part of its experience.

  The exhibition will also include sections devoted to Pistoletto's Plexiglas works from 1964 that clearly prefigure Conceptualism, his Stracci (Rags) sculptures from the late-1960s and early-1970s that exemplify his Arte Povera period, and interactive documentation of the performance work that he produced with his Zoo group from 1968 to 1970. A centerpiece of the show will be Pistoletto's Oggetti in meno (Minus Objects), a group of sculptural objects created in 1965 and1966.

  Exhibition Catalogue:
  The exhibition will be accompanied by a full-color 320-page catalogue, Michelangelo Pistoletto: From One to Many, 1956-1974 published in English by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in conjunction with Yale University Press. Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo (MAXXI) will produce an Italian-language catalogue. The catalogue will be edited by Carlos Basualdo, the Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Curator of Contemporary Art, with contributions by art historians Jean-François Chevrier, Claire Gilman, Gabriele Guercio, and Angela Vettese, as well as the Museum's Conservator of Paintings Suzanne Penn. It is available in the Museum Store ($65), or via the internet at www.philamuseum.org. Michelangelo Pistoletto: From One to Many, 1956 – 1974 is organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and MAXXI (Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo), Rome

  Curator: Carlos Basualdo, The Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Curator of Contemporary Art
  Location: Dorrance Galleries for Special Exhibitions

  The exhibition is made possible by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, and by The Kathleen C. and John J. F. Sherrerd Fund for Exhibitions. Initial research was supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

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• Michelangelo Pistoletto: Cittadellarte
  November 2, 2010 – January 16, 2011
  
  Pistoletto's current project Cittadellarte will be represented in conjunction with Michelangelo Pistoletto: From One to Many, 1956-1974. Cittadellarte is an interdisciplinary laboratory for art and cultural production, founded by Pistoletto in his hometown of Biella, Italy (near Turin) in 1998, where Pistoletto has developed several autonomous and self-organized offices focusing on art, economics, education, politics, ecology, and communication. The name Cittadellarte refers to both a fortified enclave and city of art and the artist's program represents Pistoletto's commitment to an “art [that is] at the center of a responsible process of transformation of society.” At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the installation will highlight the intellectual, political, and social dialogues fostered by Cittadellarte, and its associated program of activities will utilize the exhibition space as a social and educational forum.

  The Cittadellarte installation will host a series of performances, lectures, and workshops bringing the spirit of the artistic center to the Museum and the city of Philadelphia. Programming for Cittadellarte is being developed by the Museum's Education Department in close consultation with the Modern and Contemporary staff in the Curatorial Department, the artist, and staff members of Cittadellarte. The programming developed for Cittadellarte will also include the collaboration of grass roots organizations and other institutions in the city.

  Curator: Carlos Basualdo, The Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Curator of Contemporary Art
  Location: Alter Gallery 176, Main Building

• Alessi: Ethical and Radical
  November 21, 2010 to April 10, 2011
  
  Alessi is widely regarded as the world's most innovative and influential maker of kitchen utensils, or in the company's parlance, “house-hold objects.” The company was founded in 1921 by Giovanni Alessi in the region of Lake Orta in the Italian Alps, an area known for highly developed traditions in wood and metal. This exhibition presents the company's history in designing household objects made by leading designers, while exploring ecological concerns, new technologies, and other themes represented by the objects on view.

  In the 1950s, under the leadership of Carlo Alessi, Giovanni's grandson, the company made the decision to commission household objects by leading Italian architects. Alberto Alessi—the fourth generation in this family-owned enterprise—took over the management of Alessi in the 1970s. Maintaining the sensibility of handicraft while working in materials ranging from stainless steel to plastic, Alberto Alessi brought the company to the forefront of international design through collaborations with architects and designers including Achille Castiglioni, Michael Graves, Ettore Sottsass, and Philippe Starck. Alessi's current catalog presents the result of the firm's work with more than 200 designers, such as Ron Arad, David Chipperfield, Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel, and Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of the architectural firm SANAA.

  Alessi: Ethical and Radical presents the company's history in objects while exploring ecological concerns, new technologies, and other themes. Alberto Alessi will receive Collab's Design Excellence Award for 2010. The exhibition is supported by Collab, a nonprofit group that supports the Philadelphia Museum of Art's modern and contemporary design collection and programs.

  Curator: Kathryn Hiesinger, Curator of European Decorative Arts after 1700
  Location: Collab Gallery, Perelman Building

  This exhibition is supported by Collab

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• Virtues and Vices: Moralizing Prints in the Low Countries, 1550-1600
  Winter 2010 – 2011
  
  This exhibition brings together a group of lively moralizing prints created between 1550 and 1600 in Antwerp and Haarlem, the two major print publishing centers in the Low Countries. Both sobering and satirical, prints of this type were popular best sellers, offering both moral instruction and visual delight to a newly expanded audience of educated Dutch and Flemish consumers. Familiar stories from the Bible, tales from Greek and Roman mythology, depictions of contemporary events, and scenes of everyday life all found favor with collectors. Ranging from the rowdy peasants and fantastic monsters of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (first documented 1550, died 1569) to the muscular heroes and sensuous nudes of Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617), about 70 engravings selected from the permanent collection demonstrate the remarkable variety of moralizing prints created by leading artists of the Low Countries during a period of significant political and religious change.

  Location: Berman Gallery, ground floor
  Curator: Charles Hausberg, Margaret R. Mainwaring Curatorial Fellow, with John Ittmann, The Kathy and Ted Fernberger Curator of Prints

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• George Inness in Italy
  February – May, 2011
  
  A canonical figure in American painting, George Inness (1825–1894) is widely admired as the pioneer of the evocative aesthetic known as Tonalism, which is distinguished by soft focus and diaphanous layers of paint. This is the first exhibition to examine the artist’s two Italian sojourns (1851–52 and 1870–74) and their formative impact on his work. Italy—its art and its landscape—offered Inness a font of inspiration as he developed his own unique artistic vision.

  This exhibition presents 10 oil paintings surveying Inness’s Italian subjects dating from 1850 to 1879. A highlight of the exhibition is Twilight on the Campagna (c. 1851), Inness’s first major work completed in Italy. Recently conserved, the painting has not been on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art since 1952. Its re-emergence and restoration—precipitated by a comprehensive publication, or catalogue raisonné, of Inness’s entire body of work issued in 2007—constitutes a significant rediscovery. Inness enjoyed his most productive years during his second stay in Italy. His paintings sold well, both as mementos of Italy for affluent American travelers and as progressive stylistic experiments for leading collectors of American landscape painting. Although Inness returned to the United States in 1874, he continued to paint Italian compositions, honing the Tonalist aesthetic that began with his first trip to Italy in 1851. With Twilight on the Campagna as its anchor, George Inness in Italy charts this innovative artist’s development as he formed, interpreted, and later remembered his diverse and vivid impressions of Italy.

  Curator: Mark Mitchell, Assistant Curator and Manager, Center for American Art
  Location: Gallery 119

  This exhibition is organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and its Center for America Art, and is supported by a generous gift from Mr. and Mrs. Frank Martucci.

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• Paris through the Window: Marc Chagall and his Circle
  March - July 2011
  
  The evocative power of Paris as a symbol of culture, of freedom, and of modernity was enormous for artists the world over and accounts for the extraordinary migration there during the first half of the 20th century. Most artists settled in a vibrant area of Paris known as Montparnasse, which was sprinkled with artists’ residences, cafes, and art galleries; it was here that Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Amedeo Modigliani, Chana Orloff, Jules Pascin, Chaim Soutine, and Ossip Zadkine established studios and discovered each other’s work. This exhibition will include around 35 paintings and sculptures by these emigré artists, all of which were created in a unique atmosphere of mutual encouragement and support in Montparnasse before the Second World War. The exhibition will focus in particular on the paintings that Chagall made between 1910 and 1920, including the artist’s early masterpiece Half Past Three (The Poet), of 1911, which has long been considered one of the great treasures of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

  Curator: Michael Taylor, The Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art
  Location: Exhibition Gallery, Perelman Building

  In conjunction with the Kimmel Center April in Paris program

  
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• Roberto Capucci
  March – May 2011
  
  Italian fashion designer and artist Roberto Capucci (born 1930) is revered by contemporary designers for his innovative silhouettes and masterful use of form, color, and materials. Roberto Capucci—featuring some 90 works, archival material and film clips, and images captured by leading fashion photographers—will be the first retrospective of his work in the United States.

  Refusing to compromise his vision to commercial concerns, Capucci refers to his work as “a study in form” inspired by art, architecture, and nature. He opened his first couture salon in Rome in 1950 at age 20, and by 1956 the international press had declared him Italy’s best designer, lauding his “vigor, imagination, and uninhibited originality.” In 1962 he moved to Paris, where he created both classical and experimental collections, incorporating surprising materials such as plastic and stones. Capucci returned to Rome in 1968, where he has continued his work as couturier and artist.

  The exhibition includes work ranging from Capucci’s sculpture-dresses—which originated with his 1978 “Colonna” silhouette, based on the Doric column—to designs conceived for the 1995 Venice Biennale and his most recent series from 2007. Capucci’s “Ocean” dress-sculpture, created for the Italian Pavilion at the 1998 World’s Fair in Lisbon, is on view alongside works that reveal his technical innovations and singular use of color.

  Curator: Dilys Blum, The Jack M. and Annette Y. Friedland Senior Curator of Costumes and Textiles
  Location: Dorrance Galleries

  Organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Capucci Foundation

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• Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus
  August – October 2011
  
  Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) is universally acclaimed as the greatest master painter of the Dutch Golden Age, the 17th-century efflorescence of art in the Netherlands. An inventory of Rembrandt’s home and studio conducted in July 1656 brought to light eight paintings created by Rembrandt and his pupils between 1643 and 1655, including two paintings called Head of Christ, and a third painting identified as a Head of Christ, from life, found in a bin in Rembrandt’s studio and awaiting use as a model for a New Testament composition.

  This exhibition of more than 50 related paintings, prints, and drawings, examines the religious, historic, and artistic significance of these eight bust-length portraits depicting traditional artistic conceptions of Christ. The portraits, reunited for the first time, feature an ethnographically correct model, deviating from the history of Christian art, which had relied on rigidly copied prototypes for Christ that were not overtly Semitic Jewish in appearance. Objects of private refection for Rembrandt, the paintings in this exhibition bear witness to Rembrandt’s iconoclasm and his search for a meditative ideal, while exploring issues of attribution derived from the artist’s collaboration with students and apprentices in his workshop.

  The exhibition will be on view at the Musée du Louvre, Paris, from April to July 2011, and at the Detroit Institute of Arts from November 2011 to February 2012.

  Curator: Lloyd DeWitt, Associate Curator of European Painting Before 1900
  Location: Dorrance Galleries

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Ongoing Exhibitions

• PHILAGRAFIKA 2010: The Graphic Unconscious—Works by Óscar Muñoz and Tabaimo
  Through April 11, 2010
  
  

  The printed image lies at the heart of the work of many contemporary artists, but just as printed materials have become ubiquitous in visual culture, passing nearly unnoticed, so too have print processes become an integral part of art-making without always being acknowledged. The role of the printed image in contemporary art is the focus of the international festival, PHILAGRAFIKA 2010, to be held throughout the city of Philadelphia. The core exhibition of the festival, The Graphic Unconscious, will be shown across five venues, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Museum will display installations by the Japanese artist Tabaimo (b. 1975) and the Colombian artist Óscar Muñoz (b. 1951) that explore the translation of printmaking into other mediums and expand the conceptual boundaries of printmaking.

  Tabaimo (b. 1975) often portrays communal places such as public restrooms, commuter trains, and bathhouses in her video works—settings where anonymity and intimacy can collide and the orderly surface of Japanese society is disturbed. Drawing on the aesthetics of traditional Japanese woodcuts as well as the frequently violent narratives of Japanese comics (manga) and animation (anime), Tabaimo’s video projections (often life-size or larger) are installed in well-defined spaces or stage-like settings in which they directly confront, envelop, or otherwise encompass the viewer. The U.S. debut of her video installation, dolefullhouse (2007), will be presented in the Museum’s Stieglitz gallery.

  Oscar Muñoz (b.1951) blurs the boundaries between photography, printmaking, drawing, installation, video and sculpture. He uses innovative processes, such as screenprinted charcoal portraits on water, to create images that address the ephemeral nature of human existence, memory, and history. Muñoz will present two projects in the Berman Gallery: screenprinted charcoal self-portraits on water, titled Narcisos en proceso (Narcissi in process), 1994-ongoing, and a set of video portraits of people who are deceased or have disappeared, Biographies, (2002).

  The institutions participating in The Graphic Unconscious are: Moore College of Art & Design, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA), The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Print Center, Temple Gallery, Temple University, and Tyler School of Art. Thirty-five artists from 18 countries will be represented. PHILAGRAFIKA 2010 is the inaugural presentation of an international festival celebrating the print in contemporary art that is based in Philadelphia with installations and exhibitions at a broad range of cultural institutions and sites in the city.

  These exhibitions, part of the multi-site exhibition PHILAGRAFIKA 2010: The Graphic Unconscious, were organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in collaboration with PHILAGRAFIKA, a nonprofit arts organization in Philadelphia that provides leadership for large-scale, collaborative initiatives with broad public exposure. Program support for The Graphic Unconscious is provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support for the installations by Óscar Muñoz and Tabaimo at the Philadelphia Museum of Art was provided by the Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia and the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Colombia, the Sicardi Gallery, Houston, Texas, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and other generous individuals.

  Curator: Shelley R. Langdale, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings
  Location: Berman and Stieglitz Galleries, Ground floor: Muñoz (Berman Gallery); Tabaimo (Stieglitz Gallery)

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• Jun Kaneko
  Through April 18, 2010
  
  A suite of four large glazed ceramic sculptures by Jun Kaneko, on view in the Skylit Galleria of the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, was installed to coincide with the East Coast debut of the artist’s production of the opera Madama Butterfly at the Opera Company of Philadelphia October 9 – 18, 2009. The sculptures, all of them rounded and richly decorated forms, are part of a larger body of works, or dangos, from the Japanese artist’s Mission Clay Project, so named after a sewer-pipe factory where Kaneko fired his work in a beehive kiln. Altogether, 41 of the works are on view in Philadelphia, including City Hall, the Kimmel Center, and Locks Gallery. Each work, which takes about a year to complete, is hollow-cast, and painted with his signature striped and polka-dot patterns. Kaneko, born in Nagoya, Japan in 1942, began his formal studies in art in the United States at the Chouinard Art Institute and continued at Berkeley and Claremont Graduate School. He has been developing the dango sculptures since the mid 1990s, and some measure up to 13 feet tall.

  In conjunction with city-wide installations titled "On the Wings of Music: Art, Opera & You," celebrating Jun Kaneko's sets and costumes for Madama Butterfly, presented at the Academy of Music by the Opera Company of Philadelphia.

  Courtesy of Jun Kaneko and Locks Gallery.
  

  Curator: Elisabeth Agro, The Nancy M. McNeil Associate Curator of American Modern and Contemporary Crafts and Decorative Arts
  Location: Skylit Galleria, the Perelman Building

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• Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris
  Through May 2, 2010
  
  One of the most innovative and influential artists of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973) was at his most inventive between 1905 and 1945. Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris surveys the artist's remarkable output, from his early experiments with abstraction to his pioneering role in the development of Cubism, as well as his dialogue with Surrealism and other important art movements. The exhibition also explores the role of Paris in the history of modern art, when artists from around the world followed Picasso’s example and moved to the French capital. It will include nearly 200 paintings, drawings, and sculptures by Picasso, Braque, Léger, Chagall, Dalí, and many others, who collectively formed an avant-garde group that became known as the School of Paris. Among the major works in the exhibition are Picasso’s Three Musicians (1921), a grand summation of the artist’s decade-long exploration of Synthetic Cubism, Fernand Léger's The City (1919), and Marc Chagall's Half Past Three (The Poet) (1911).

  The exhibition presents a unique opportunity to display the Museum’s important collection of works on paper by these artists, most notably collages by Picasso and Braque, which, due to their light sensitivity, are only occasionally on view. Several paintings that have not been displayed in several decades will also be on view. The exhibition will be arranged to chronicle the dramatic evolution of Picasso’s art, from the early, iconic Self-portrait with Palette (1906), in which the young artist unabashedly proclaims his mastery and command, to Woman with Loaves (1906) in which he begins to use archaic and non-western art forms to reinvent human anatomy, to later works that are infused with surrealism and neoclassicism.

  Although Picasso and Braque pioneered Cubism, with its flattened forms and multiple perspectives, the exhibition will also include works by artists such as Juan Gris and Léger, who began to formulate their own visions in response. The exhibition further considers the role of American and Eastern European artists who joined the thriving scene in Paris, among them Alexander Archipenko, Marc Chagall, Charles Demuth, Jacques Lipchitz, Man Ray, and Max Weber.

  Through the dizzying shifts in style and technique that marked these tumultuous years, Picasso continued to be a galvanizing force for the artists around him. The exhibition demonstrates the variety and innovation of his work during this time, and brings to life the extraordinary atmosphere of early 20th century Paris and the significant artwork that emerged there.

  Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris is made possible by GlaxoSmithKline.Additional funding is provided by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Pew Charitable Trusts. Promotional support provided by NBC 10 WCAU; Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau (PCVB) and the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC); The Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News, and Philly.com; and Amtrak.
  

  Curator: Michael Taylor, The Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art
  Location: Dorrance Galleries

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• The Platinum Process: Photographs from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century
  Through May 23, 2010
  
  Photographers have long been seduced by the subtle and lustrous shades of the platinum print, which range from the deepest blacks to the most delicate whites. More than 50 works from the late 19th century to the present are included in the exhibition, showcasing outstanding prints largely drawn from the Museum’s collection of photographs. Highlights include images by early masters of the process including Frederick H. Evans (1853-1943) and Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), as well as works by skilled contemporary practitioners such as Lois Conner (born 1951) and Andrea Modica (born 1960), who continue to engage in this historic and painstaking process in an era marked today by electronic imaging.

  Revered for its permanence as well as its tonal depth and beauty, platinum has been treasured by photographers and collectors since its introduction in 1873, its popularity impeded only by its high cost and its scarcity. Unlike standard silver printing, in which particles are suspended in gelatin, platinum is brushed directly onto the paper, allowing artists to create a matte image that boasts an exceptionally wide tonal range. While encompassing works spanning many dates and styles, The Platinum Process highlights one of the Museum's treasures, the 1915 masterpiece Wall Street, by Paul Strand (1890-1976), whose work was at the forefront of the modernist aesthetic developing in New York during the early 20th century. In this work, he used platinum’s subtlety to emphasize abstract patterns in the long shadows cast by figures that appear dwarfed before a succession of monumental windows.

  This exhibition is supported by the Arlin and Neysa Adams Fund.

  Curator: Peter Barberie, Curator of Photographs, and Julia Dolan, The Horace W. Goldsmith Curatorial Fellow
  Location: The Julien Levy Gallery, the Perelman Building

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• An Enduring Motif: The Pomegranate in Textiles
  Through spring 2010
  
  Artists have been inspired by the inner and outer beauty of the pomegranate since biblical times. An Enduring Motif: The Pomegranate in Textiles presents nine textiles from the Museum’s collection, each of which feature the richly symbolic fruit. The pomegranate tree or shrub is known for its spherical, calyx-crowned red fruit filled with hundreds of seeds. It originated in Persia (present-day Iran) several thousand years ago and is still prized for its sweet-sour flavor and medicinal properties. Historically, the pomegranate tree’s bark has been a source of tannin used in curing leather and its rind and flowers used as a textile dye. In addition to its practical uses, the pomegranate has been cross-culturally revered for centuries as a symbol of health, fertility, and resurrection.
  

  Curator: Dilys Blum, The Jack M. and Annette Y. Friedland Senior Curator of Costume and Textiles
  Location: Costume and Textile Gallery 271

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• Marcel Wanders: Daydreams
  Through June 13, 2010
  
  Marcel Wanders' (b.1963) unique fusion of technology, artistry, and wit have established him as a leading figure in international design. Created specifically for the Museum, this installation will showcase the designer’s favorite projects over the last 20 years, including prototypes, personal editions, and objects never before exhibited.

  Trained in The Netherlands as an industrial designer, Wanders’ work ranges from manufactured products and design-art to architecture and interior design. Using shifting video images, light, and sound, the exhibition dramatizes the evolution of Wanders’ design process and philosophy with visual and aural storytelling. Several films will demonstrate how Wanders’ works are interrelated. A selection of what the artist considers his most essential works will be on view, among them: Knotted Chair, Bell Big Ben Bianco, Calvin, Lucky One, Extra Big Shadow Floor Lamp, Moosehead, Crochet Chair New Antiques Chair, and Blow Lamp. Throughout his career, Wanders has consistently challenged the premises of modernism through avant-garde works on view like Knotted Chair (1996), which marries handcraft and industrial technology; the chair is made from braided, epoxy-soaked aramide rope with a carbon-fiber core and hung in a frame to harden.

  This exhibition was made possible by Lisa S. Roberts and David W. Seltzer, and by Target, with additional support provided by Collab—a group that supports the Museum’s modern and contemporary design collection and programs.An in-kind contribution was provided by Electronic Theatre Controls, Inc.
  

  Curator: Kathryn Hiesinger, Curator of European Decorative Arts after 1700
  Location: Collab Gallery, Perelman Building

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• Interactions in Clay: Contemporary Explorations of the Collection
  Through July 11, 2010
  
  

  Chosen for their adventurous and experimental attitudes toward traditional ceramic practices, four artists interact with historical works or spaces to discover new meanings and formal strategies inspired by works of art in the Museum. The artists' interpretations will range in scope and location, from Walter McConnell's ongoing exploration of wet clay manifested within the Pillard Hall from a Temple in Gallery 224, to Paul Sacaridiz' interest in city forms displayed in relation to the Pennsylvania German furniture in the Joan and Victor Johnson Gallery 115 in the American Galleries. The Lansdowne Room (Gallery 297), a 1760s London drawing room, serves as inspiration for two artists. Betty Woodman's abstract vases and wall pieces celebrate the architectural and ceramic forms displayed in the Lansdowne room and will be shown in the adjacent Gallery 295. Ann Agee's wallpaper highlights the cultural contrast between the aristocratic Lansdowne Room and the utilitarian Millbach Kitchen (Gallery 285) where her work will be shown.

  The Clay Studio has developed this project in conjunction with Independence: The 44th Annual National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts Conference, to be held in Philadelphia March 31 – April 3, 2010. Guest curators for the project are Jody Clowes, Jo Lauria, John Perreault, and Judith Tannenbaum.

  Curator: Elisabeth Agro, The Nancy M. McNeil Associate Curator of American Modern and Contemporary Crafts and Decorative Arts
  Location: Galleries 115, 224, 285, and 295

  This exhibition was commissioned by The Clay Studio of Philadelphia, in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Support for the development and planning of the project is provided by the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by the University of the Arts. Additional support is provided by the William Penn Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. The exhibition was developed by guest curators Jody Clowes, Jo Lauria, John Perreault, and Judith Tannenbaum. Elisabeth Agro, The Nancy M. McNeil Associate Curator of American Modern and Contemporary Craft and Decorative Arts, is the organizing curator for the Museum's presentation.

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• Kantha: The Embroidered Quilts of Bengal from the Hill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection and the Stella Kramrisch Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
  Through July 25, 2010
  
  Lovingly created from the remnants of worn garments and embroidered with motifs and tales drawn from the rich visual and narrative repertoire of Bengal, kanthas were traditionally stitched by women as gifts to be used in the celebration of weddings and other family occasions. This exhibition presents 44 examples of this vibrant domestic art, created by village and urban women in the Bengal region, now comprised of Bangladesh and the state of West Bengal, India between the mid-19th and the mid-20th century.

  The first exhibition devoted solely to this form of art ever presented outside of South Asia, Kantha: The Embroidered Quilts of Bengal focuses on two premier collections. One was assembled and donated to the Museum by its former Curator of Indian Art, Dr. Stella Kramrisch (1896-1993). The other was assembled by Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz, leading proponents of American self-taught art, who have offered their kantha collection as a promised gift to the Museum on the occasion of this exhibition. The quilts on view were created by women who, whether rural or urban, Hindu or Muslim, shared a common Bengali culture from which they drew inspiration. Embroidered kanthas served a great variety of ritual and household needs. Elaborately ornamented or especially beloved pieces might be carefully preserved and passed down through generations, but most kanthas become ever more stained, faded, and fragile until finally being used as a diaper or dishcloth, making the well-preserved kanthas in these collections especially rare.

  The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue were made possible by Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz, with additional generous support from The Coby Foundation, Ltd., and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation.
  

  Curator: Darielle Mason, The Stella Kramrisch Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art
  Location: Joan Spain Costume and Textile Gallery, Perelman Building

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• Inspiring Fashion: Gifts from Designers Honoring Tom Marotta
  Through summer 2010
  
  This exhibition presents a collection of runway styles donated by 17 celebrated designers in recognition of the creative legacy of the late fashion visionary and powerhouse Tom Marotta.

  The gifts, obtained through the auspices of Saks Fifth Avenue, reflect a diverse spectrum of contemporary special occasion and evening wear, from classic designs to cutting-edge styles. The gifts will become part of the Museum’s permanent collection, and are donated by designers including Badgley Mischka, Bill Blass Ltd., Burberry Prorsum, Oscar de la Renta, Nancy Gonzalez, Carolina Herrera, Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan, Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren, Missoni, Zac Posen, Zandra Rhodes, Ralph Rucci, Peter Som, Valentino, and Diane von Furstenberg.

  Marotta, born in South Philadelphia, spent over 40 years working in fashion, including many at Philadelphia’s highly regarded Nan Duskin boutique. As vice president of couture for Saks Fifth Avenue, his fashion sense was much admired by loyal customers as well as emerging and established fashion designers. He earned the affection and esteem of fashion titans and was an early champion of a new generation of designers.

  This exhibition explores the creative influence behind each designer’s aesthetic, and will be accompanied by materials exploring the creative influences and inspiration behind the designers’ work.

  Curator: Kristina Haugland, Associate Curator of Costume and Textiles and Supervising Curator for the Study Room and Academic Relations
  Location: Costume and Textile Study Gallery, the Perelman Building

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• Arts of Bengal: Wives, Mothers, Goddesses
  Through August 2010
  
  Bengal (modern Bangladesh and eastern India) is a lush region of lotus pools, fish-filled rivers, and tiger-haunted forests punctuated by rice and banana fields, rural villages, and teeming cities. The domestic arts made by and for Bengali women during the 19th and 20th centuries include intricate embroidered quilts called kanthas, vibrant ritual paintings, fish-shaped caskets and other implements created in resin-thread technique. Drawn from a common pool of motifs and ideas that reflect the unique environment of the region, these creations provide a rare view into women’s everyday lives and thoughts.

  Other arts, such as elaborate painted narrative scrolls and souvenir paintings from Kalighat near Calcutta, illustrate women’s roles, both domestic and divine. Representations of the great goddess Durga as beloved daughter, devoted wife, adoring mother, fierce warrior, and heroic victor epitomize the complex nature of female divinity—and of women themselves—in the stories and culture of Bengal.

  Created in conjunction with the exhibition Kantha: The Embroidered Quilts of Bengal from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection and the Stella Kramrisch Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, on view in the Spain Gallery of the Museum’s Perelman Building (through July 25, 2010), Arts of Bengal: Wives, Mothers, Goddesses and the companion Arts of Bengal: Town, Temple, Mosque (Gallery 227, March 13 through summer 2010) showcase works from the Museum’s extensive holdings of Bengali vernacular arts.
  

  Curator: Yael Rice, Assistant Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art, and Darielle Mason, The Stella Kramrisch Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art
  Location: Himalayan Art Gallery 232, second floor

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• The Two Qalams: Islamic Arts of Pen and Brush
  Through August 2010
  
  This exhibition explores the relationship between calligraphers and artists through five works of calligraphy, drawing, and painting dating from the 17th through 19th century. A highlight from this group is a never-before-exhibited Mughal tinted drawing of around 1600, which, in its subject matter and emphasis upon bold and graceful linear effects, borrows from both European prints and Islamic calligraphies.

  In Arabic, the word qalam originally meant the calligrapher’s reed pen. Calligraphers were and are esteemed in Islamic circles because their pens write the sacred words of the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam. The attitude toward painters, however, has not always been so positive since their brushes could depict—thus create—human and animal figures, thereby challenging the sole creative authority of God.

  Persian poets of the 16th century countered this negative perception by describing the painter’s brush as a second qalam, equivalent to that of the calligrapher’s pen. The two qalams came together in the vibrant bookmaking workshops of the Islamic courts of Persia and India, where calligraphers and painters collaborated to produce a wealth of elaborate manuscripts and albums in which the art of pen and brush merged with exquisite results.

  Curator: Yael Rice, Assistant Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art
  Location: Shah Abbas Cubiculum, Gallery 228

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• Arts of Bengal: Town, Temple, Mosque
  Through August 2010
  
  The great cities of Bengal (modern Bangladesh and parts of eastern India) have long been artistic hubs where professional painters, weavers, and sculptors catered to both local and European clientele. Under British colonial rule, artists in Calcutta (modern Kolkata), Dacca (Dhaka), Murshidabad, and Patna, produced silver vessels adorned with scenes of rural life, silk saris brocaded with images of urban pleasures, and paintings of colorful festivals. Temples and mosques, often decorated with intricately molded terracotta bricks, also fostered creativity. Some even provided venues for artists to sell paintings satirizing city life. Bengal’s rich urban fabric also offered inspiration to artist-intellectuals such as Jamini Roy, Mukul Dey, and Nandalal Bose as they sought to forge a modern aesthetic in the decades leading to and following independence. Through works drawn from the Museum’s collections, this exhibition explores the texture of life and art in Bengal’s cities from the 18th to the 20th century.

  Curator: Yael Rice, Assistant Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art, and Darielle Mason, The Stella Kramrisch Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art
  Location: The William P. Wood Gallery 227

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• Pleasures and Pastimes in Japanese Art
  Through fall 2010
  
  From representations of classical Noh theater masks and costumes to depictions of poetry competitions and of the joys of fishing, Pleasures and Pastimes in Japanese Art examines the myriad ways in which leisure time was interpreted across all social classes in Japanese art. The 70 or so objects on view, spanning the period from the 16th to the 20th century, encompass activities ranging from libretti and musical instruments of the theater, attended by Japanese nobility, to scroll painting and ceramics depicting fishing trips. The importance of gourmet food and drink to Japanese culture is also reflected in ceramic vessels intended for sake and by food containers on view. Other pleasures and pastimes represented include intricately designed incense burners, painted versions of ikebana—or flower arrangements—and a set of playing cards, based on 100 classical poems, still used during New Year’s celebrations in Japan today.

  Curator: Felice Fischer, The Luther W. Brady Curator of Japanese Art and Curator of East Asian Art
  Location: East Asian Art Galleries 241, 242, 243

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• Flora and Fauna in Korean Art
  Through spring 2011
  
  Artists of East Asia have been greatly inspired by depictions of flora and fauna based on Chinese works of art as well as those indigenous to various regions. The fine arts and crafts in this exhibition of 45 works from the 5th to early 20th century feature diverse representations of animals and plants that often served as living symbols of philosophical, historical, and metaphorical associations in Korea. These works, drawn from the collection, depict mythical animals like the dragon and phoenix, believed to protect against evil spirits, as well as plum trees, orchids, chrysanthemum, and bamboo, considered the “four symbols” of literati gentlemen. Often, the metaphor of animals and plants was based on word play, giving additional meaning to certain combinations of selected animals or plants. The Korean pronunciation of the characters for "reed" and "old man" are the same (no), as are the words for "geese" and "comfort"(an). Thus, traditional Korean paintings of reeds and geese represent a wish for a peaceful life in later years.

  The highlight of the paintings, ceramics and lacquer objects on view is a pair of court paintings of phoenixes and peacocks with a paulownia and peach tree. These rare and exquisite paintings of the 19th-century Joseon dynasty have been newly conserved and remounted in Korea, and make their debut in this exhibition. They would have functioned both as wall decoration and as an emblem of good fortune in the setting of a Joseon palace. Owing to the fragility of works on paper and silk, the paintings will be rotated periodically.

  Curator: Hyunsoo Woo, The Maxine and Howard Lewis Associate Curator of Korean Art
  Location: Gallery 237 and Baldeck Gallery 238

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• Informed by Fire: Highlights of American Ceramics
  Through spring 2011
  
  Varied form, surface decoration and use of color combined with science and skill reveal vibrant, original and intelligent expressions in clay. This exhibition will present more than 40 examples of ceramics from the Museum’s collection that demonstrate the rich ceramic tradition of the United States, from Anthony W. Baecher’s Watch Holder (1850), to Jane Irish’s Poverty (2008). Firing, the final act in creation, is a celebratory moment fringed by anxiety and excitement. It is the kiln that gives these works of art their final form; they are Informed by Fire. Informed by Fire is on view to honor Independence: The 44th Annual National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) Conference that will be held in Philadelphia in Spring 2010.

  Curator: Elisabeth Agro, The Nancy M. NcNeil Associate Curator of American Modern and Contemporary Crafts and Decorative Arts
  Location: North Auditorium Gallery

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