Exhibition?s masterpieces expected to attract visitors from region
Consisting of 64 paintings, sculptures and works on paper from The Baltimore Museum of Art?s extensive collection, this rich exhibition presents a survey of the ground-breaking movements in art?including Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism and Surrealism?that made Paris the center of modern art and culture from the late 19th century to the outbreak of the World War II.
“We are pleased to bring this wonderful exhibition from The Baltimore Museum of Art to Nashville,” says Frist Center Executive Director Susan H. Edwards. “Several years ago, we were fortunate to have an exhibition from The Phillips Collection, and, in many ways, this is a marvelous companion to that show, which drew tens of thousands of visitors from our community and around the region. This marks a return to Nashville for many of these magnificent artists. The exhibition?s focus, which is the world of art and artists in Paris in the early 20th century, is interwoven with the story of the collectors. The show also helps us understand how such collections came to be.
“The exhibition in our upper-level galleries features the work of significant artists working in post-revolutionary war Mexico (1920?1950),” says Edwards. “Frist Center visitors have a wonderful opportunity to compare and contrast how artists?working on opposite sides of the Atlantic?responded to their cultural, artistic and political environments.”
Matisse, Picasso, and the School of Paris: Masterpieces from The Baltimore Museum of Art features paintings, sculptures and works on paper ranging in date from the 1880s to the 1940s.
The exhibition begins with artwork from the Impressionist period, an important and influential time in Paris when artists such as Claude Monet and Edgar Degas abandoned the traditional academicism of the official salons and developed a new style based on modern subject matter and careful observation of the environment. Many artists desired to capture ?the fleeting moment? and the ephemeral aspects of the changing atmosphere.
Post-Impressionism is a general term for the many innovative movements that emerged in Paris after Impressionism. Perhaps the only unifying element of these artists is their shared desire to bring more emotional expression or theoretical concepts to their work. The exuberant brushwork and use of bold, vivid colors apparent in paintings by Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh illustrate the artists? efforts to translate emotion into paint on canvas.
Henri Matisse, inspired by his predecessors? efforts to develop a new language of color, created works that furthered this notion of liberating color from its descriptive function. When Matisse and his colleagues Andr? Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck displayed their works at the 1905 Salon d?Automne in Paris, they were branded as “wild beasts,” or “fauves,” because their colors were so unnatural and expressive.
Although Fauvism was short-lived (the group disbanded in 1908), Matisse became one of the most important and influential artists of the 20th century, helping to change the rules of art through his bold use of color, pattern and line. His constant exploration of these elements manifested itself in innovative paintings, drawings and sculptures that spanned a 60-year career. Fifteen works by Matisse, covering over 35 years, including Purple Robe and Anemones (1937) and Interior, Flowers and Parakeets (1924), are featured in the exhibition.
Along with Matisse, Pablo Picasso is often considered one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, one whose style changed considerably throughout his long career but was always highly inventive. Interestingly, the Cone sisters preferred his early work, as demonstrated by the pieces in this exhibition, which date primarily from 1902 to 1906, including Woman with Bangs (1902) from Picasso?s Blue Period, and Seated Saltimbanque with Boy (1904) from his Rose Period.
Picasso, along with fellow artist Georges Braque, created Cubism, which revolutionized the depiction of space, volume and mass. Moving even further away from traditional artistic practices, Cubists dismissed the notion of three-dimensional perspective, favoring instead the flat quality of the picture plane. Often presenting multiple points of view on one canvas, Cubists typically deconstructed a view and reassembled it. Included in the exhibition are works by Braque, Juan Gris and others.
The exhibition continues with fine examples of Surrealist art. Surrealism emerged as a leading movement in Paris in the 1920s. The movement had far-reaching international influence on both literature and the visual arts. Consumed by the idea that Western culture was in deep crisis, Surrealist artists, strongly influenced by Sigmund Freud?s theories, embraced the world of the unconscious. Many of them practiced automatism, the process of drawing or writing without conscious control. As a result, artists often produced dreamlike images of seemingly random forms. Surrealist works featured in the exhibition from Saidie May?s collection include paintings by Andr? Masson and Yves Tanguy.
The Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau has created a special overnight travel package including tickets to Matisse, Picasso, and the School of Paris: Masterpieces from The Baltimore Museum of Art. Additional information about these offers and other happenings in Nashville can be found at www.visitmusiccity.com.
“Art exhibitions of this magnitude play a critical role in attracting new visitors and extending the stay of existing visitors to our city,” says Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau President Butch Spyridon. “More people are traveling to take advantage of Nashville?s exciting arts scene, and our collaborations with organizations like the Frist Center enable us to carry Nashville?s message even further.”
Gallery admission to the Frist Center is free for visitors 18 and under and to Frist Center members. Frist Center admission is $8.50 for adults, $7.50 for seniors and military, and $6.50 for college students with ID. Discounts are offered for groups of 10 or more with advance reservation by calling (615) 744-3246. The Frist Center is open seven days a week: Mondays through Wednesdays and Saturdays, 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Thursdays and Fridays, 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.; and Sundays, 1:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., with the Caf? opening at noon. Additional information is available by calling (615) 244-3340 or by visiting our Web site at www.fristcenter.org.