Changes in the Collection Galleries

Many of the Center's 24 galleries present works from the collection plus long-term loans. Each collection gallery is dedicated to a distinct era or type of art. Together the galleries span the history of art from ancient China and Egypt to the 21st century. Works in the galleries change on a regular basis.

Freidenrich Family Gallery
Andy Warhol Prints
April 16 – December 7, 2008
One of the most famous artists of our time, Andy Warhol created prints, paintings, drawings, and films, and changed society's notions about celebrity and originality. This rotation features multiples from the Mao and Flowers Series lent by the Marmor Foundation, as well as prints from the Electric Chair Series and images of celebrities including Elizabeth Taylor and Mick Jagger.

The Eloquence of Hands
April 16 – December 7, 2008
Traditionally, portraiture rests on the axiom that "the eye is the window to the soul."Consequently, in this view the best portraits convey the inner truth of an authentic self. But as we move ever more decisively into an age of "all-performance-all-the-time," one can recognize a counter-tradition at work in the history of portraiture. This tradition suggests that portraiture also traffics in theatricality, disguise, and performance. In this rotation, exemplary images of the hand as key to character — authentic or theatrical — allow us to imagine the hand as a stage for portraiture. Works by Eadweard Muybridge, Ansel Adams, Auguste Rodin, and others are on view.
IMAGE: Berenice Abbott ((USA, 1898-1991): Portrait of James Joyce, 1925. Gelatin-silver print. Committee for Art Acquisitions Fund, 1986.232

Early Modern Gallery
Recent Acquisitions
February 27, 2008 – February 15, 2009
Loans of art by Stuart Davis and Albert Gleizes complement the Center's collection. Several new acquisitions, including works
by Hans Arp, Stanley Hayter, and Grant Wood are featured.
IMAGE: Hans Arp, Silent, 1942. Stone, marble, metal. Given in honor of Ruth Halperin by Mr. and Mrs. John Freidenrich

Madeleine H. Russell Gallery
Chinese Contemporary Art on loan from Mr. and Mrs. L. S. Kwee
While Chinese contemporary art demonstrates the continuity of cultural tradition in the use of media and imagery that resonate with the past, it also mirrors the dramatic changes that China has undergone in the recent past, particularly since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. Liu Xiaodong's recent oil painting A Highway Near the Yangzi is among works on view.

Two African figuresPatricia S. Rebele Gallery
Ere Ibeji: Twin Figures
February 27 – August 24, 2008
The Yoruba people of western Africa, who have very high rates of twin births as well
as of infant deaths, memorialize children
by commissioning and caring for surrogate carved wooden figures known as ibeji. A
twin pair of ibeji from Nigeria are on view, introducing this tradition and inviting us to consider how we perceive twins in our own culture.
IMAGE: Twin Figures (ere ibeji). Wood, metal, Reckitt's bluing pigment, string of disks made from vegetable matter. Given in memory of Janine Heymann by Thomas K. Seligman and Rita Barela, 1997.162.1-2.

Rowland K. Rebele Gallery
Invention and Eloquence
April 23, 2008 – March 8, 2009
Displays by students in John Tinker's Program in Writing and Rhetoric course, "Objects of Argument," offer critical contexts for the newly acquired Neoclassic painting by Francois-Andre Vincent of Zeuxis Choosing His Models for the Image of Helen from Among the Women of Croton. This painting, currently on view in the Early Europe gallery, will also be featured in the museum's celebration of recent acquisitions, which opens in the Pigott Family Gallery in November.

Robert Mondavi Family Gallery
Artists Abroad
On view through September 28, 2008
Works on paper in this gallery feature views of Paris and Rome, as well as lesser-known picturesque and exotic locations, made by artists who took advantage of new railroad and steamship travel in the 19th century. This display includes an etching of Venice by James McNeill Whistler and a watercolor of Capri by Maurice Prendergast. Also featured are new selections from the museum's large collection of oil sketches and drawings by William Trost Richards.

Recent Acquisitions
October 8, 2008 – March 15, 2009
This rotation of works on paper includes recent acquisitions and promised gifts in conjunction with the major exhibition in the Pigott Family Gallery, Dürer to Picasso. Also highlighted is the dialogue between Western and Japanese artists, as seen in Toyohara Chikanobu’s woodblockprint of a woman dressed in the latest Parisian style and in Félix Buhot’s etchings of Japanese objects.

Early European Gallery
Artists in Their Studios
On view through September 28, 2008
This selection of prints shows studio practices of artists from the 16th through the 18th centuries. Among these works, Pier Francesco Alberti's engraving of an Academy of Painters depicts students studying perspective and anatomy; Jacques-Philippe Le Bas's Study of Drawing reproduces a painting by Chardin; and Abraham Bosse's Sculptor in his Studio shows the sculptor trying to interest a couple in his latest creation.
IMAGE: François-André Vincent, Xeuxis Choosing his Models for the Image of Helen from among the Girls of Croton, c. 1791. Oil on canvas.
Gift of the Robert and Ruth Halperin Foundation, 2007.28

Goltzius and His Circle
October 8, 2008 – March 15, 2009
In addition to making his own engravings and woodcuts, Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617) also produced designs for a large circle of artists, which he published and distributed throughout Europe. Including promised gifts from the collection of Kirk Edward Long and the Center's own collection, this exhibition complements the show on Goltzius himself by highlighting works by the artists in his immediate circle. Included are a series depicting the Adriaen de Vries Rape of a Sabine by Jan Muller, a recently acquired Mars and Venus by Jacob Matham after a design by Goltzius, who was his father-in-law, and other prints for which Goltzius provided designs. In addition to highlighting Goltzius's influence, this selection also demonstrates the range of secular and religious subject matter popular at this time.



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