Upcoming Exhibitions

October 12 - January 9, 2011

Valerio Adami

Valerio Adami , Finlandia, circa 1987, acrylic on canvas, 79 x 105 inches. Courtesy of Fondo Adami, Fondazione Europea del Disegno

Robert Cottingham: Twenty Ways to See a Star

Robert Cottingham, Southern Star, 2009, silkscreen on canvas, 79 x 79 inches. Courtesy of American Image Atelier

Romanticism to Modernism: Graphic Masterpieces from the Permanent Collection (in the Education Gallery)

Pablo Picasso (Spanish, born in Málaga, 1881-1973), Faune dévoilant une dormeuse (Jupiter et Antiope, d'après Rembrandt),[Faun Revealing a Sleeping Woman (Jupiter and Antiope, after Rembrandt)], 1936, etching with aquatint on paper, 12 3/8 x 16 3/8 inches. Permanent Collection

Fine prints have, since their origin in the 15th century, been admired for their great artistic diversity and technical virtuosity. This exhibition includes fine examples by acknowledged masters of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including masterworks by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Italian, 1720-1788), Francisco de Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828), and Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973), each of whom is celebrated for his pioneering experiments in graphic art. The exhibition opens with a selection of brilliant works by Piranesi, the highly influential Italian precursor of the romantic style, whose brooding and atmospheric series Carceri (Prisons), 1749-1760, is one of the great icons of the 18th century.  Included are etchings from Goya’s The Disasters of War (1810-20); lithographs and etchings by James McNeil Whistler (American, 1834-1903); and a range of important graphic works by Picasso including etchings from the Vollard Suite created between 1930 and 1937, The 347 Series of 1968, and Picasso’s Series 156 completed in 1971.

This exhibition is organized by the Boca Raton Museum of Art.

Latin American Art from the Permanent Collection 

Julio Larraz (American, born Havana Cuba 1944-), Luna, 1999, oil on canvas, 55 x 73 inches. Museum Permanent Collection. Gift of the artist

Twentieth-century and contemporary Latin American art is international in nature, and its leading figures have achieved international stature. This sampling of Latin American art from the Museum’s collections introduces the work of several major Latin American artists whose works reflect the interaction of politics, society and art, a dialogue between avant-garde movements and “indigenist” thinking, and the search for cultural -identity.

Twenty works by many of the most important 20^th century Latin American artists range from the traditional figurative sculpture of Francisco Zúñiga, to the the modernism of Rufino Tamayo and Matta, the contemporary abstraction of Enrique Castro-Cid and Carlos Cruz-Diez, and the poetic realism of Julio Larraz.

Keira Knightley wore this costume as Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, in The Duchess (2008), Costume Design by Michael O’Connor, Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design

Heath Ledger wore this costume as Giacomo Casanova in Casanova (2005), Costume Design by Jenny Beavan

Cut! Costume and the Cinema explores the intersection of fashion and film with forty-three extraordinary costumes worn by luminous film stars: Sandra Bullock, Johnnie Depp, Robert Downey Jr., Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman,Heath Ledger, Vanessa Redgrave, Maggie Smith,  Kate Winslet, Renée Zellweger and others. Visitors to the Museum will be transported from Elizabethan England (Angelica Huston, Ever After) to 17th-century Virginia (Colin Farrell, The New World) to the 18th-century England of the aristocracy (Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes, The Duchess) to opulent 19th-century Paris, (Emmy Rossum, The Phantom of the Opera) to the story of Peter Pan (Kate Winslet, Finding Neverland), and the newly released adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law, Sherlock Holmes) into the 20th century – to colonial Shanghai (Natasha Richardson, The White Countess) and Virginia Woolf's England (Vanessa Redgrave, Mrs. Dalloway) to the forests of Belarus in World War II (Daniel Craig, Defiance).

Cut! Costume and the Cinema reveals the integral role of fashion design in creating unforgettable screen characters. Costumes set the scene, providing information about where and when the drama is taking place, and introducing characters by giving clues about their status, age, class and wealth as well as their position in the story. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Venetian upper class 18th-century silk brocade coat of Heath Ledger (Casanova) versus the distressed leather jacket worn by Daniel Craig (Defiance) while hiding from the Nazis in World War II. Costumes created for period films must not only stand the test of time, but also the test of scrutiny. When a camera zooms in for a close-up every hand-created detail must look authentic and perfectly executed. This exhibition allows us to get closer to the stories portrayed on screen and to appreciate the quality of the costumes up close, sometimes only fleetingly glanced on the screen.

Cut! Costume and the Cinema is presented by Exhibits Development Group  in cooperation with Cosprop Ltd., London, England.

Sponsored in part by: 

George Gardner Symons, Southern California Coast, oil on canvas, 40 1/4  x 50 inches, courtesy of The Irvine Museum

Starting with the late 1880s and continuing into the early part of the twentieth century, California’s majestic landscape was the inspiration for many American artists. They set out to capture California’s vivid colors and intense sunshine in a distinctive style that has come to be called California Impressionism or California plein air painting after the French term for "in the open air." Venturing out into nature, these artists often depicted California as a colorful, sunlit garden of wildflowers or a tranquil retreat.

As a regional variant of American Impressionism, the California plein air style is a composite of traditional American landscape painting and influences from French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. With the turn of the century, when Impressionism had only recently become an accepted American style, Southern California experienced an influx of young artists, most of whom had been trained in that style and had never known any other. The period from 1900 to 1915 marks the flowering of California Impressionism. It is part of the continuum of American art’s passion with landscape, a lineage that began long before the early years of the American republic.

This exhibition presents masterpieces of California Impressionism from the Irvine Museum, arguably the most important collection of West coast American Impressionism. The Irvine Museum is the only museum in California dedicated to the preservation and display of California Impressionism or plein-air painting. The colorful collection of more than 60 California Impressionist paintings presents the work of more than forty-four artists. Among the well-known artists featured in the exhibition are William Wendt, Guy Rose, Dona Schuster, Granville Redmond and Alson Clark.