2006-09 / 2005 / 2004 / 2003 / 2002 / 2001 / 2000
Livable Modernism: Interior Decorating and Design During the Great Depression
October 5, 2004 – June 5, 2005

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.

American Miniatures of Children, 1770–1950
January 14 – August 5, 2005

Twenty-four "portable portraits," drawn from the museum’s collection, depict or commemorate children, celebrating the emergence of increasingly child-centered families beginning in the late eighteenth century. Such portraits as Eliza Goodridge’s likeness of Julia Porter Dwight, the great-niece of Yale President Timothy Dwight, captured for parents a tender moment in a child’s rapidly changing life. The death of the very young—so frequent in an era of high mortality rates—contributed to the popularity of mourning miniatures, several of which are on view.

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

Historical Fictions: Edward Lamson Henry's Paintings of Past and Present
July 24 – December 30, 2005

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.

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.