Exhibitions Archived in: 2001

The Theatrical Baroque

January 9 – April 22, 2001

This exhibition of baroque paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings, taken primarily from the Museum's permanent collection, explored the interaction between the visual arts and the theater of the seventeenth century. The exhibition investigated the incorporation of theatrical devices into visual representation, the role of the baroque audience, and the dynamics... more »

Landscapes of Retrospection: The Magoon Collection of British Drawings and Prints, 1739-1854

January 25 – March 25, 2001

The works in the Magoon Collection—part of the permanent holdings of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College—illustrate the tremendous social and economic transformation of Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The collection consists of prints, drawings, and watercolors by leading artists and architects, and... more »

Anselm Kiefer: Painting, Woodcuts, Sculpture, Books

April 10 – July 8, 2001

Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945) is perhaps best known for majestic paintings from the 1980s and early 1990s that evoked Germany's contested history through charred landscapes and mythic symbolism. This exhibition, drawn from the Manilow collection, used a few choice works to call attention to other aspects of Kiefer's practice. Two... more »

Ben Shahn's New York: The Photography of Modern Times

April 10 – June 10, 2001

This exhibition, organized by the Harvard University Art Museums, presented the photographic work of the celebrated American social realist artist Ben Shahn (1898–1969). The exhibition explored the function and meaning of Shahn's experimental work in photography and his subsequent contribution to the emerging field of social documentary within the larger... more »

Borders and Crossroads: The Buddhist Art of Ancient Gandhara

May 8 – October 7, 2001

The Buddhist art of ancient Andhra (today encompassing parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northwest India) was a singular cultural achievement, one that co-mingled a Greco-Roman artistic vocabulary with indigenous Indian sculptural and religious traditions. As such, it is a fertile arena for examining artistic florescence along geographic and cultural borders,... more »

"See America First": Prints by H. C. Westermann

June 28 – September 9, 2001

"See America First" is the first retrospective exhibition of the prints of the American sculptor, painter, draftsman and printmaker H. C. Westermann (1922–1981), a central figure in American art of the post-war period. The Smart Museum mounted an exhibition of lithographs, linoleum cuts, woodblock prints, and related drawings and ephemera... more »

Recollections and Observations: The Prints of Roger Brown

July 14 – September 2, 2001

Roger Brown (1941–1997) was one of the foremost Chicago Imagist artists. Best known for his paintings, he was also a prolific printmaker, who worked in a range of graphic media—lithography, silkscreen, intaglio, woodcut and commercial printing processes for which he made original drawings. This exhibition presented for the first time... more »

Dreams and Disillusion: Karel Teige and the Czech Avant-Garde

October 4 – December 30, 2001

A leading figure of the avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s, Karel Teige (1900–1951) produced paintings, collages, photomontages, book covers, and film scripts throughout his career. Teige also edited some of the most influential avant-garde journals on Czech and international cultural affairs and wrote profoundly original books and essays on... more »

A Well-Fashioned Image: Clothing and Costumes in European Art, 1500-1850

October 23, 2001 – April 28, 2002

Fashion—or the question of what to wear and how to wear it—is a centuries-old obsession. Beyond superficial concerns with personal appearance, the history of dress points to deep preoccupations surrounding the social order, national identity, and moral decency. A Well-Fashioned Image drew on the Smart Museum's collection and a number... more »

Crossing Borders: Modern Photographs from Central Europe

September 8 – December 16, 2001

This exhibition was the first in a series highlighting new photography acquisitions. Supplemented by key loans, it featured the Smart Museum's growing collection of modernist Central European photographs made between the two world wars. This exhibition explored the internationalism of this work, expressed in part though the stylistic synthesis of... more »

Exposure: Recent Chinese Photography from the Smart Museum Collection

December 22, 2001 – March 24, 2002

Experimental art from mainland China has become recognized as an especially vibrant area of contemporary art, one that the Smart Museum has supported through acquisitions as well as exhibitions. The four artists presented in Exposure —Qiu Zhijie, Rong Rong, Song Dong, and Wang Wei—were born during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976)... more »

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