PAST EXHIBITIONSHard Edge: Abstract Prints from Albers to Held
 Big Prints: Contemporary American Graphic Art, 1967–200025 January–18 May 2003 Although the large, oversized prints that were made by artists through the centuries were usually exceptions to the standard, it was in the late 1960s that big prints (over six feet in any dimension) became the standard for much of contemporary printmaking in America. Robert Rauschenberg’s Booster, a lithograph published by Gemini G. E. L. in 1967 on a single sheet of paper 72 inches high, is generally considered to be the benchmark print for the movement in oversized graphics. This exhibition of about 15 prints celebrates the trend for “big” in printmaking through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
Casting a Spell: Winslow Homer, Artist and Angler
Max Ernst: Surrealism in Artists’ Books 26 October 2002–23 February 2003
Philip Guston’s Poor Richard 12 October 2002–26 January 2003
Henry Moore: Sculpting the 20th Century 23 June - 16 September 2001 The first major retrospective of the artist's work in the United States in nearly 20 years, this exhbition includes 166 works of art that not only span Henry Moore's career, but also illustrate his seminal role in the evolution of modern sculpture. Objects on view include Moore's carvings in wood, stone, and other media, as well as drawings, maquettes, and plasters. The exhbition is focused on Moore's work as a carver, and includes many of his early, provocative works that serve to alter common perceptions about this major sculptor of the 20th century. The Triumph of Fortitude and The Triumph of Prudence February 10, 2001 - December 31, 2001 Two gems from the Fine Arts Museums' renowned tapestry collection, The Triumph of Fortitude and The Triumph of Prudence, from the monumental 16th-century series The Triumph of the Seven Virtues, go on view for the first time in more than 25 years. The tapestries depict biblical and mythic images and stories exemplifying each virtue, and they functioned as a Renaissance morality lesson, showing the rewards and virtues that should be attributes of the leading social class of 16th-century Europe. After the War: European Artists' Books 1945-1955March 17, 2001 - July 8, 2001 Although 1945 officially marked the end of World War II, Europe remained physically, emotionally, and economically devastated for many years to come. Victory had come at a great cost to the intellectual optimism of Europe. It is therefore somewhat astonishing that out of the deprivation of the times, a wide range of publishers, artists, printers, and binders emerged with vitality to create marvelous artists' books between 1945 and 1955. It is especially amazing in that this post-war period was one of deep recession with very little commercial prospects for these works of art. The Reva and David Logan Collection has a fine selection of books from this era. Works from the collection's holdings that are on view in this exhibition include Fernand Léger;s Circus (1950), Pablo Picasso's Les chants des morts (1948), Henry Moore's Prométhée (1950), and Max Ernst's La Brebvis Galante (1949). The Acquisition of an Archive: The Graphic Works of Ed RuschaMay 12, 2001 - October 7, 2001 For more than 35 years, Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) has been not only an influential voice in post-war American painting, but also one of contemporary art's most significant graphic artists. Ruscha's prints blend Pop, Surrealist, and Conceptual ideas with his own signature sense of deadpan humor. This exhibition, drawn from the holdings of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, will showcase works from approximately three decades of print-making. On view will be early prints that feature emblems of popular culture, including Standard Station (1966), with its iconic Standard gasoline station. Well-known prints made in the 1970s and 1980s depict words as both subject and object: Evil (1973) and 51% Angel/49% Devil (1984) are some that will be exhibited. Also featured will be recent prints made at Crown Point Press and the Mixografia Workshop that probe archetypal imagery such as the weather vane, the hourglass and the hunting dog. The Visual Art of John Cage John Cage (1912-1992) was best known for his avant-garde musical compositions that defied conventional rules of harmony and were composed using what he called "chance operations." He also created visual work beginning with graphic scores, then added printmaking, drawing and watercolor.
Spring and the Fine Arts Museums' annual flower festival and benefit event, Bouquets to Art, are celebrated with this exhibition of approximately 25 contemporary prints on the subject of flowers. Daffodils by David Hockney, tulips by Richard Diebenkorn, calla lilies by Michael Mazur, two glorious sunflowers by Pat Steir, and a single red rose in a vase by Wayne Thiebaud are among the colorful selections that will be on view.
Over 400 works capture the lively and creative spirit of Montmartre, the northernmost district of Paris, and the site of the important avant-garde community of artists, musicians, writers, poets, and performers in late-19th-century France. Illustrated books and journals, prints, posters, drawings, watercolors, shadow theater silhouettes, and various ephemera such as invitations and programs from cabaret, music hall, and theatrical performances will be on display. Approximately 70 works by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, 65 of which are culled from the collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, are a particular highlight of the exhibition. The exhibition reveals Montmartre as the catalyst for artistic and intellectual collaboration at the fin de siècle. The basic aspects that define this avant-garde activity are its reliance on humor, its interest in challenging the established standards of art, its use of nontraditional media, and its often conceptual nature. These characteristics profoundly influenced 20th-century art forms such as Dada, Surrealism, Fluxus, and performance art. AT THE DEYOUNG The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco host the first major exhibition devoted to the life and works of Edward Hicks, a 19th-century Quaker minister and painter, whose interpretations of The Peaceable Kingdom are among the most beloved paintings in American art. This exhibition focuses new attention on the Quaker beliefs and church politics that inspired both Hicks's subject matter and his self-consciously naive style. The exhibition includes more than 50 paintings, ranging from his well-known Peaceable Kingdom variants to other historical subjects, showing the entire range of Hicks's artistic interests. Wedding Dresses from the Permanent Collection Today's white wedding dress, a symbol of innocence, purity, and new beginnings, became a firmly established Western tradition by the late 19th century. Using rich and splendid materials as well as the incorporation of archaic fashion elements, wedding dresses not only conform to contemporary fashion, but distinguish themselves as a ritual garment set quite apart from everyday dress. This installation consists of seven wedding dresses, dating from the 1860s to the 1970s and all recently donated to the Fine Arts Museums, that represent the interpretation of the wedding dress over the course of a century. From Three Continents: Textile Acquisitions, 1996-2000 This exhibition, which features a richly varied selection of costumes and textiles from South America, Africa, and Asia, illustrates the many ways in which individual cultures have expressed their distinctive aesthetics and customary practices through cloth and clothing. At the same time, the exhibition offers the viewer an opportunity to observe common themes underlying the use of cloth in most pre-literate societies: the importance of textiles and costume in ceremonial and ritual life, in honoring the dead and ensuring their protection of the living, and in conveying identity, whether group or individual. John Gutmann: Photographer/Collector For 60 years John Gutmann was a recognized presence in the cultural life of San Francisco as a painter, professor, collector, and, most prominently, as a photographer. His generous bequest in 1999 to the Fine Arts Museums includes 150 of his vintage prints of Chinese, Indian, and Burmese subject matter, which were shown in 1947 at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum. Seventy of these signal photographs are on view in a reprise of the original exhibition. In addition there will be a selection of approximately 20 pieces of 20th-century west and central African sculpture from the artist's bequest to the museums. These compelling objects reflect his collecting perspective as a practicing artist. Great Nature: The Transcendent Landscapes of Chiura Obata The first major retrospective of Chiura Obata's work since 1977, this exhibition presents 100 of the renowned Bay Area artist's sumi-e (Japanese ink and brush paintings), large-scale scrolls, and color woodblock prints, as well as a selection of the artist's own materials, including his brushes, palette, and hand-ground pigments. Obata's most famous work, a portfolio of extraordinary color woodblock prints titled the World Landscape Series-America (1930), was inspired by a trip to the Yosemite Valley and the Sierra Mountains in 1927. Also included in the exhibition is a selection of works created by Obata while he, his family, and over 8,000 other Japanese Americans were confined in an internment camp in Topaz, Utah during World War II. AT THE LEGION OF HONOR Old Master Prints from the Berolzheimer Collection This exhibition showcases 80 of the 112 Old Master prints given to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 1998 by Michael G. Berolzheimer. The prints in this exhibition represent a cross section of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century Italian, German, and Dutch graphic art. Among the highlights are 16 etchings by Rembrandt and 28 prints by Albrecht Dürer, including his series of 20 woodcuts titled The Life of the Virgin. Also on view are extraordinary impressions by Andrea Mantegna, Marcantonio Raimondi, Guido Reni, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, Hans Baldung Grien, Lucas van Leyden, Adriaen van Ostade, and Jacob Isaacksz van Ruisdael, among others. |
The term “hard edge” identifies a style of painting for artists, most of them American, whose primary interests were in geometric form, color, and optical effects. Many of these artists, including Josef Albers, Frank Stella, and Ellsworth Kelly, made prints in the 1960s and 1970s after discovering that printmaking techniques such as screenprint and lithography could easily produce the effects of flatness and unmodulated color that their work represented. The 20 prints in this exhibition, primarily from the Anderson Graphic Arts Collection, show the evolution of “hard edge” in printmaking over the course of 20 years.
Consisting of 65 paintings, mostly watercolors, this exhibition is the first to look closely at one of this great American master’s favorite artistic themes and personal passions: flyfishing. These works are greatly varied and span Winslow Homer’s entire career. His preferred fly-fishing regions—the distinctive areas of Florida, Quebec, and the Adirondacks of New York State—elicited from the artist brilliant studies of light, atmosphere, and spirit of place that convey the intensity of his experience in nature.
Max Ernst (1891–1976) was one of the most influential and creative artists within the Surrealist movement. A German by birth and upbringing, Ernst fought in World War I but eventually settled in Paris in 1922, where he became a key member of the artistic circle surrounding André Breton. Talented as a painter, sculptor, draftsman, and collagist, Ernst had a special affinity for the creation of artists’ books. This exhibition, drawn from the museums’ Reva and David Logan Collection of Illustrated Books, includes La Femme Cent Têtes (1929) and the masterpiece 65 Maximiliana, ou l’exercice illegal de l’astronomie (1964).
Philip Guston (1913–1980) was one of the most influential American artists of the last third of the 20th century. In the late 1960s he radically changed his style from abstractions to a bleak expressionistic world. In 1972, inspired by Our Gang and his friend Phillip Roth’s satire of the Nixon Presidency, Guston produced is own indictment of Nixon in a series of 72 drawings. Despite their brilliance, they were not exhibited until 2001, when they appeared at the David McKee Gallery in New York. Also included in this exhibition are several important late Guston paintings from local collections.
Cage made his first etchings at Crown Point Press in San Francisco in January of 1977, and he continued to work at the press for two weeks every year until his death. A selection of approximately 50 his etchings and monotypes are presented in this exhibition co-curated by Karin Breuer, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts and Kathan Brown, founder and director of Crown Point Press. Included will be Seven Day Diary (1978), Cage's first project at the press; Déreau (1982), a 38-print series inspired by the drawings of the 19th-century American writer, Henry David Thoreau; and 75 Stones (1989) a large print that combines rock tracings with Cage's signature smoked paper technique.
Prints in Bloom
Toulouse-Lautrec and the Spirit of Montmartre:Cabarets, Humor, and the Avant-Garde 1875-1905