Making it New: The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy
February 26–May 4, 2008, first floor

Sara and Gerald Murphy are best remembered as the captivating American expatriates who inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night. This exhibition is the first to explore the couple’s relationships with some of the pivotal figures in avant-garde circles in Paris in the 1920s. Their legendary style—modern in its apparent simplicity and freedom from stifling social regimentation—was a touchstone for many artists, writers, and musicians of the period—among them their friends Fitzgerald, Fernand Léger, Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter, Ernest Hemingway, Serge Diaghilev, and Jean Cocteau. Gerald Murphy himself was a brilliant and inventive painter. Regrettably, only seven of his canvases survive. They are brought together here for the first time, along with paintings, watercolors, drawings, and photographs by artists within his circle, such as Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Léger, and Picasso. Photographs and home-movie footage of the Murphys and their friends, as well as personal correspondence and artifacts, also help bring the era to life.

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The 16th Annual Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque Memorial Symposium is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Making It New. On Friday evening before the symposium, Wanda Corn, the Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor Emerita in the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University, presents the keynote Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque Lecture, "Making Murphy New."

The conference program, including registration information, is available as a downloadable PDF. Or, for more information, please call 203.432.0616.

Art Talk Episode
Undergraduate Gallery Guide Elyse Nelson speaks with curator Helen Cooper, poet Nancy Kuhl, and conservator Mark Aronson about Gerald Murphy's Bibliothèque. Go to Art Talk podcast -->

This exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, Making It New: The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy, edited by Deborah Rothschild and published by the Williams College Museum of Art and the University of California Press, available at the Gallery's Bookstore.

Exhibition organized by the Williams College Museum of Art and supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: great ideas brought to life; the Terra Foundation for American Art; the Getty Foundation; and the Dedalus Foundation, Inc. The presentation at the Yale University Art Gallery is organized by Helen A. Cooper, the Holcombe T. Green Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture. Supported by John, LG 1975, and Barbara Robinson, of the Widgeon Point Charitable Foundation; Anna Marie and Robert F. Shapiro, B.A 1956; the Eugénie Prendergast Fund for American Art, given by Jan and Warren Adelson; and the Friends of American Arts Exhibition Fund.

Colorful Impressions: The Printmaking Revolution in Eighteenth Century France
January 29–May 4 , 2008, fourth floor

Celebrating one of the most innovative periods in the history of color printmaking, this exhibition includes ninety-five images, many of which are presented in multiple impressions or alongside related drawings. During the second half of the eighteenth century in France, newly invented engraving and etching techniques were combined with new ways of printing a single image from multiple plates. For the first time, full-color prints could be created from four basic colors: red, yellow, blue, and black. Within just a few decades, thousands of images were produced, including some of the most complex and beautiful color prints ever made. Most of the works in Colorful Impressions reflect the carefree spirit of the ancien régime, an era of royal indulgence before the French Revolution in 1789. Compositions are by the most celebrated artists of the time, including François Boucher, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Jean-Baptiste Le Prince, Hubert Robert, and Jean-Antoine Watteau.

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The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, Colorful Impressions: The Printmaking Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France, available in paperback at theGallery's Bookstore.

Exhibition organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The presentation at the Yale University Art Gallery is organized by Suzanne Boorsch, the Robert L. Solley Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs. Supported by an endowment made possible by a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Exhibition and publication organized by Jock Reynolds, the Henry J. Heinz II Director; Susan Matheson, Chief Curator and the Molly and Walter Bareiss Curator of Ancient Art; and Joshua Chuang, the Marcia Brady Tucker Assistant Curator of Photographs. Supported by the Robert Lehman Endowment and Janet and Simeon Braguin Funds with additional support provided by Carolyn H. Grinstein and Gerald Grinstein, B.A. 1954, Dr. Jane Frank Katcher and Gerald Katcher, LL.B. 1950, H. Christopher Luce, B.A. 1972, Jan Perry Mayer and Frederick R. Mayer, B.A. 1950, Anna Marie Shapiro and Robert F. Shapiro, B.A. 1956, and an endowment created with a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Architect’s Table: Swid Powell and Postmodern Design celebrates the Swid Powell Collection and Records, now housed at the Yale University Art Gallery. The company, founded in 1982 by Nan Swid and Addie Powell, produced innovative housewares designed by the foremost architects of the 1980s, including Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Stephen Holl, Richard Meier, Robert A. M. Stern, Stanley Tigerman, and Robert Venturi, among others. Through meticulous research and marketing, Swid Powell helped the architects transform their ideas into finished objects, many of which have become icons of Postmodern design. This exhibition of highlights from the archive includes original drawings, promotional material, silver, ceramics and glass, and rare prototypes for unexecuted objects.

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Organized by John Stuart Gordon, the Benjamin Attmore Hewitt Assistant Curator of American Decorative Arts. Supported by an anonymous gift and an endowment created with a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

A doll’s quilt inscribed with a tender lullaby, an ivory trinket carved by a sailor far from home, a portrait of a father and daughter—these and other captivating works of folk and decorative art from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are featured in Made for Love: Selections from the Jane Katcher Collection of Americana. The thematic exhibition, drawn from this important collection of American folk and decorative art, features thirty-nine objects that contain expressions of affection between men and women, parents and children, students and teachers, and friends, examining the material symbols Americans used to express bonds of affection.

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Symposium
Hand and Heart: Collecting, Curating, and Creating American Folk Art

Saturday, March 31, 9:15 am–5:00 pm
Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall

The 15th Annual Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque Memorial Symposium is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Made for Love. On Friday evening before the symposium, Steven Mintz, Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and the John and Rebecca Moores Professor of History, University of Houston, presents the keynote Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque Lecture, "Private Passions: Art and the Hidden History of Love and Friendship."

The conference program, including registration information, is available as a downloadable PDF. Or, for more information, please call 203.432.0615.

Exhibition organized by Erin E. Eisenbarth, the Marcia Brady Tucker Curatorial Fellow at the Yale University Art Gallery. The exhibition is supported by an endowment made possible by a challenge grant from the  National Endowment for the Arts and by Friends of American Arts at Yale Exhibition and Publication Fund.

Exhibition organized by Yale students under the direction of Anna Hammond, Deputy Director for Education, Programs, and Public Affairs; Pamela Franks, Curator of Academic Initiatives; both of the Yale University Art Gallery; and Christine Mehring, Assistant Professor of the History of Art at Yale. This exhibition is made possible by the Florence B. Selden Fund, and the Jane and Gerald Katcher and the Nolen-Bradley Family Funds for Education, with additional support provided by Drs. Joseph L. Koerner, B.A. 1980 and Margaret L. Koster, and by Carol and Sol LeWitt in memory of Robert Rosenblum.

Yale students celebrate the reopening of the Gallery’s main building, designed in 1953 by American architect Louis Kahn and restored in 2004–6, with this special exhibition of works from the collection. Responding to Kahn: A Sculptural Conversation highlights the restored building and the relationship between modern art and architecture, with particular emphasis on postwar sculpture. The curatorial team of students, who represent a range of disciplines, organized all aspects of the exhibition, from the selection of objects to the installation design, interpretive materials, and accompanying catalogue.

Panel Discussion
Responding to Kahn

Thursday, February 22, 5:30 pm
Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall
Free and open to the public; seating is limited

Contemporary artists whose work is installed in Responding to Kahn: A Sculptural Conversation gather to discuss their work, its placement in the show, and its relationship to the newly renovated Kahn building.

Exhibition and publication organized by Yale students under the direction of Pamela Franks, Curator of Academic Initiatives, Yale University Art Gallery. This exhibition and publication are made possible by the Jane and Gerald Katcher Fund for Education, The Nolen-Bradley Family Fund, and Mr. and Mrs. Theodore P. Shen, B.A. 1966. The panel discussion is supported by the Hayden Visiting Artists Program.

This exhibition presents a selection of prints by Enrique Chagoya, Carroll Dunham, Jane Hammond, and Kiki Smith from the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery. Printmaking plays a vital and integral role in the working processes of these artists, acting both as an extension of and in exchange with the work in their primary medium. Drawn to printmaking’s inherent properties, such as multiplicity, reversal, and layering, and open to engaging in both traditional and nontraditional methods, these artists explore and challenge what it means to “make a mark.” The diversity of work presented in the exhibition—from Chagoya’s comic-book style narratives to Hammond’s vision of the heavens—gives an insider’s look into a vibrant dialogue taking place in contemporary printmaking.

Symposium
The Contemporary Print:
Artists and Master Printers

Saturday, March 3, 9:00 am–6:30 pm
Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall
Free and open to the public; seating is limited.

This contemporary printmaking symposium, held in conjunction with the special exhibitions Making a Mark: Four Contemporary Artists in Print and Jasper Johns: From Plate to Print, expands the discourse on contemporary printmaking with a particular focus on collaboration and the contribution of new technologies. Panelists include Enrique Chagoya, Carol Dunham, and Kiki Smith.

The conference program, including registration information, is available as a downloadable PDF. Or, for more information, please call 203.432.3728.

Exhibition organized by Elizabeth C. DeRose, the Florence B. Selden Curatorial Assistant, Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, Yale University Art Gallery. Supported by the Florence B. Selden Fund, with additional support provided by Mr. and Mrs. Alexander K. McLanahan, B.A. 1949. The symposium is supported by the Florence B. Selden Fund and the Hayden Visiting Artists Program.

Printmaking has been integral to the work of preeminent American painter Jasper Johns throughout his career. He approaches each project with a thorough knowledge of the medium, exploiting its intrinsic characteristics—mark-making, replication, reversal, layering, fragmentation, and memory. Jasper Johns: From Plate to Print focuses on an untitled 1999 intaglio print by the artist, featuring the working proofs, trial proofs, and progressives leading up to the final print, as well as the five plates used in its creation. The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to explore the artistic and mechanical process of printmaking while providing a glimpse into the artist’s creative process—his development of motifs, color choices, and graphic enhancement.

The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue, with an essay by the curator. Available at the Gallery's Bookstore; for more information, please call 203.432.7421.

Exhibition and publication organized by Elizabeth C. DeRose, the Florence B. Selden Curatorial Assistant, Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, Yale University Art Gallery. Supported by the Florence B. Selden and the Heald Foundation Prints, Drawings, and Photographs Funds, with additional support provided by Mr. and Mrs. Alexander K. McLanahan, B.A. 1949. The symposium is supported by the Florence B. Selden Fund and the Hayden Visiting Artists Program.

This exhibition explores that evocative period from dusk to dawn in the works of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American artists, among them Robert Adams, Ralph Albert Blakelock, Oscar Bluemner, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, and Yvonne Jacquette. Artists' visions of night—offering intimations of suspense, mystery, romance, fantasy, fear, despair, and hope—are as much psychological explorations of the mind as they are transcriptions of the external world. Accompanied by quotations from literature, including the poem by Wendell Berry that provides the title for this show, the exhibition invites visitors to consider how night has been variously interpreted in images and words.

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Exhibition organized by Helen A. Cooper, the Holcombe T. Green Curator, and Robin Jaffee Frank, the Alice and Allan Kaplan Senior Associate Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture. The exhibition is supported by Friends of American Arts at Yale, the Eugénie Prendergast Fund for American Art given by Jan and Warren Adelson, and an endowment made possible by a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Mourning rings, miniatures, knee buckles, bracelets, and other notable and unusual selections from the Gallery’s collections of gold, silver, and costume jewelry are presented in this exhibition, many on public view for the first time. From a necklace of gold beads created by a colonial goldsmith to insignia from the Society of the Cincinnati and the Masons; from Bakelite bracelets from the 1930s to studio jewelry from some of the country’s finest contemporary artisans, the exhibition reveals how Americans have adorned and accessorized themselves for over two hundred years.

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The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue, with an essay by the curator. Available online (see Information: Museum Store) or at the Gallery's Museum Bookstore; for more information, please call 203.432.7421.

Exhibition and publication organized by Erin Eisenbarth, Acting Assistant Curator of American Decorative Arts. Supported by endowments made possible by the Friends of American Arts at Yale and a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Widely appreciated in his own time as an artful storyteller, Edward Lamson Henry (1841–1919) meticulously documented places and events, particularly those associated with early America and the Civil War. The exhibition explores the artist’s fascination with “historical fictions,” and how these romanticized visions of the past helped create a unified national identity in the discordant decades after the Civil War. Although precisely rendered, Henry’s lively paintings and drawings presented fantasies about the past that addressed viewers‚ anxieties about their changing world, which was being profoundly affected by mounting industrialization, urbanization, and immigration.

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The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue, with an essay by the curator. Available online (see Information: Museum Store) or at the Gallery’s Museum Bookstore; for more information, please call 203.432.7421.

A related symposium, “Historical Fictions: Constructing the Past in Gilded-Age America,” takes place on Saturday, October 29, 2005. On Friday evening before the symposium, Michael Kammen, the Newton C. Farr Professor of American History and Culture at Cornell University, presents the keynote Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque Lecture. The symposium and lecture are open to the public. Conference program and registration information are available as a downloadable PDF.

Exhibition and publication organized by Amy Kurtz Lansing, the Marcia Brady Tucker Curatorial Research Assistant, American Paintings and Sculpture. The exhibition is supported by the Friends of American Arts at Yale, the Eugénie Prendergast Fund for American Art given by Jan and Warren Adelson, and an endowment made possible by a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The catalogue was supported by a grant from Furthermore: a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, and by the Virginia and Leonard Marx Fund.

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Organized by Amy Kurtz Lansing, the Marcia Brady Tucker Curatorial Research Assistant, American Paintings and Sculpture.

Livable Modernism celebrates the Yale University Art Gallery’s collection of American modernist design from the 1930s. The exhibition features examples of furniture, tablewares, and accessories sold for the living rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms of American middle-class homes during the Great Depression. American designers in these years experimented with modern materials, such as chromium and tubular steel, and streamlined, efficient forms, while aiming to satisfy consumers’ desire for comfort and familiarity.

A related symposium, "American Modernist Design, 1920–1940: New Perspectives," takes place on October 29–30. Conference program and registration information are available as a downloadable PDF.

Exhibition and publication organized by Kristina Wilson, Assistant Professor of Art History, Clark University, and former Marcia Brady Curatorial Fellow, American Decorative Arts, and supported by the Friends of American Arts at Yale and an endowment made possible by a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Twenty-two years ago, the China Institute presented a selection of masterworks of Chinese art from the Yale University Art Gallery. Now, a second exhibition, The Scholar as Collector: Chinese Art at Yale, reexamines the collection from the perspective of Chinese scholar-collectors. Selections of calligraphy and painting, the two arts most esteemed by scholar-collectors, range from eleventh-century images of scholars to early twentieth-century writing in the ancient seal script. Antiquarian interests on the part of scholars led them to collect bronze ritual vessels, prized for their inscriptions, and to the creation of archaistic vessels, which met the market demand for antiques. The exhibition includes a selection of ceramics representing the types most frequently mentioned in scholarly writings. In order to create a context for all of the works of art, a scholar's studio has been assembled with a Qing-period bookcase, a seventeenth-century yoke-back chair, and a grouping of scholar's desk objects.

Exhibition and publication organized by David Sensabaugh, Curator of Asian Art, Yale University Art Gallery.

Stagestruck in America:
Artists, Entertainers, & Audiences, 1906–1956
February 10–August 8, 2004

This exhibition marks the Yale University Art Gallery's acquisition of two American paintings depicting aspects of New York City’s theatrical life in the first half of the twentieth century. Everett Shinn’s The Orchestra Pit, Old Proctor’s Fifth Avenue Theatre of 1906 and Walt Kuhn’s Chorus Captain of 1935 are the centerpieces of this Matrix Gallery show which includes paintings, drawings, photographs and prints from the Gallery’s collections by Lee Friedlander, James Van Der Zee, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Mabel Dwight and Reginald Marsh (Yale class of 1920), and others.

Organized by Robin Jaffee Frank, Associate Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture. Supported by the Friends of American Arts at Yale, the Jan and Warren Adelson Fund in honor of Eugénie Prendergast, and an endowment made possible by a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.