museum

Coming Exhibition: “Charles James: Beyond Fashion”

Current Exhibition:

“Charles James: Beyond Fashion”

Austine Hearst in Charles James Clover Leaf Gown, ca. 1953

WHERE:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

1000 Fifth Avenue (at 82nd Street)
New York, NY 10028
Phone: 212-535-7710 (TTY: 212-650-2921)

WHEN:

May 8, 2014 – August 10, 2014

Sun-Thurs. ~ 10:00 am – 5:30pm

Fri-Sat. ~ 10:00am – 9:00pm

HOW MUCH:

Adults: $25    |   Seniors (65 + ): $17    |    Students: $12    |    Members: Free    |    Children (12 – ): Free

Further Information:

MET Website 

“The inaugural exhibition of the newly renovated Costume Institute examines the career of the legendary twentieth-century Anglo-American couturier Charles James (1906–1978). Charles James: Beyond Fashion explores James’s design process, focusing on his use of sculptural, scientific, and mathematical approaches to construct revolutionary ball gowns and innovative tailoring that continue to influence designers today. Approximately sixty-five of James’s most notable designs are presented in two locations—the new Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery in the Anna Wintour Costume Center as well as special exhibition galleries on the Museum’s first floor.

The first-floor special exhibition galleries spotlight the glamour and resplendent architecture of James’s ball gowns from the 1940s through 1950s. The Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery provides the technology and flexibility to dramatize James’s biography via archival pieces including sketches, pattern pieces, swatches, ephemera, and partially completed works from his last studio in New York City’s Chelsea Hotel. The evolution and metamorphosis by James of specific designs over decades are also shown. Video animations in both exhibition locations illustrate how he created anatomically considered dresses that sculpted and reconfigured the female form.

After designing in his native London, and then Paris, James arrived in New York City in 1940. Though he had no formal training, he is now regarded as one of the greatest designers in America to have worked in the tradition of the Haute Couture. His fascination with complex cut and seaming led to the creation of key design elements that he updated throughout his career: wrap-over trousers, figure-eight skirts, body-hugging sheaths, ribbon capes and dresses, spiral-cut garments, and poufs. These, along with his iconic ball gowns from the late 1940s and early 1950s—the “Four-Leaf Clover,” “Butterfly,” “Tree,” “Swan,” and “Diamond”—are showcased in the exhibition.”

Off the Beaten Path: National Museum in Lagos

Who:

National Museum in Lagos, Nigeria

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Where:

National Museum, Lagos
Awolowo Rd (opp Muson Centre),
Onikan, Lagos Island.
Tel: +234 -1 263 6005

When:

Mon-Sat 9am – 5pm

What:

National Museum, Lagos

by Adeyemi Adisa via “Come to Nigeria“

National Museum, Lagos

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Current Exhibition: Beijing: Contemporary and Imperial ~ Photographs by Lois Conner

“Beijing: Contemporary and Imperial ~ Photographs by Lois Conner”

Solitary Arch, Changchun Yuan, Yuanming Yuan (Garden of Extended Spring, Garden of Perfect Brightness), 1998, printed 2013. Lois Conner

Who:  Cleveland Museum of Art

When: Mar. 30, 2014 – June 29, 2014 (Mon-Sat. 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.)

Where: 

Cleveland Museum of Art
11150 East Boulevard
Cleveland, OH 44106

How Much:  Generally Free, some special exhibits require a ticket.

More Information: Here.

“Magical, miraculous, and often times dangerous is how photographer Lois Conner has described some of her experiences capturing the images included in Beijing: Contemporary and Imperial: Photographs by Lois Conner.Opening at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Sunday, March 30 alongside Conner’s in-person Artist Talk that afternoon, the exhibition features a vast visual tour of historic and contemporary Beijing, inviting the viewer to reflect on China’s rising power in the context of its history and cultural landscape. The sites depicted span three centuries, embracing the dynastic glory of the Qing and its decline, the revolutionary 20th century, and the post-imperial and post-socialist story of Beijing and China today.

“Conner has said that the subject of her photography is landscape as culture,” comments Barbara Tannenbaum, the museum’s Curator of Photography. “The designs of public squares, city streets, gardens, palaces, humble homes, and office buildings directly impact the lives and emotions of those who occupy them. Those spaces also reveal the intentions of their creators, whether it is to demonstrate political, religious, or social power; offer a soothing respite from urban bustle; or burnish the beauty of nature.” . . . 

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New Deal Treasure: Government Searches For Long-Lost Art

“New Deal Treasure: Government Searches For Long-Lost Art”

by Brian Naylor via “NPR“

John Sloan's Fourteenth Street at Sixth Avenue hung in the office of Sen. Royal Copeland until his death in 1938. After that, the painting was lost until 2003.

“At the height of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt enacted a raft of New Deal programs aimed at giving jobs to millions of unemployed Americans; programs for construction workers and farmers — and programs for writers and artists.

“Paintings and sculpture were produced, murals were produced and literally thousands of prints,” says Virginia Mecklenburg, chief curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The GSA recovered Anne Fletcher's Iris Garden after its then-owner watched an episode of PBS's Antiques Roadshow and realized the painting was actually a WPA piece.i

The GSA recovered Anne Fletcher’s Iris Garden after its then-owner watched an episode of PBS’s Antiques Roadshow and realized the painting was actually a WPA piece.

Courtesy of the U.S. GSA Fine Arts Program

In all, hundreds of thousands of works were produced by as many as 10,000 artists. But in the decades since, many of those works have gone missing — lost or stolen, they’re now scattered across the country.

A Transformative Time For American Artists

The biggest New Deal art program was the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project. Artists could earn up to $42 a week, as long as they produced something.

Mecklenburg says it was a transformative time for the artists: “The idea for an artist to be able to work through a problem, to work through ideas, you know, that’s golden. So it was a very special moment, and one that really has not ever been repeated.”

To qualify for the work, however, you had to prove yourself as an artist and you had to show you were poor. Mecklenburg spoke to two brothers-in-law who were in the program.

She says, “One of them was saying, you know, you had to prove you were penniless — he said it hurt your dignity. And the other one was so cavalier and devil-may-care about it. He said: Oh, you know, if you thought the relief worker was coming to check out if you had an iron, or anything else that looked like it was of value, you just ran it over to the neighbor’s apartment so it looked like you didn’t have any possessions at all. It’s about as human a story as we’ve ever come up with in the art world.”

The GSA's Brian Miller holds Andrew Winter's Gulls at Monhegan (click here for a closer look). The painting will be sent to the U.S. Embassy in Croatia as part of the State Department's Art in Embassies program.i

Every Recovered Painting Has A Story

Some of the art became famous — such as the murals  . . . . .”

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Current Exhibition: Flowers of the Four Seasons in Chinese and Japanese Art

I Might Actually Get To See This One Myself! ** DB

Who: St. Louis Art Museum

What: Flowers of the Four Seasons in Chinese and Japanese Art

When: February 7, 2014 – September 1, 2014

Where: Gallery 225 at the art museum

One Fine Arts Drive

Forest Park

St. Louis, MO 63110

How Much: Free!

Further Information: