Lunch & Learn: The Conservation of Sculpture
What challenges are involved in caring for sculpture—especially when they’re exposed to the elements? Objects conservator Michael Belman leads a discussion of the conservation and preservation of sculpture on display in the museum’s galleries and outdoor spaces. Register online.
Art in Bloom: Presentation by Danielle Rollins & Buffet Luncheon
This year’s Art in Bloom presentation, “Gracious Living and Stylish Entertainment,” will be presented by Danielle Rollins, one of the nation’s foremost tastemakers in lifestyle and entertaining. She is a frequent contributing editor for Veranda and Southern Living magazines and the lifestyle editor for online magazine Luxe Life. Following her presentation, there will be a buffet luncheon with open seating available in the Hall of Sculpture, transformed into an urban park courtesy of Eichenlaub. Book signing in Carnegie Music Hall Foyer: 9–10 a.m.; Presentation in Carnegie Music Hall: 10–11:30 a.m.; Buffet Luncheon in the Hall of Sculpture: noon–2 p.m. For more information, call the Women’s Committee at 412.622.3325. Purchase tickets online. To purchase Presentation Only tickets for $50 per person, click here.
Art in Bloom Friends of Junior Ambassadors Dance Party
Celebrate the opening of Art in Bloom with drinks, desserts, and dancing in the Hall of Sculpture, transformed into the “Skyline After Dark.” For more information, call the Women’s Committee at 412.622.3325. Purchase tickets online.
Skyline After Dark installation courtesy of Eichenlaub.
Art in Bloom Preview Gala–“Skyline After Dark”
Enjoy cocktails and light fare in the the Hall of Sculpture, transformed into the “Skyline After Dark,” and then visit the galleries to view the stunning Art in Bloom exhibition. For more information, call the Women’s Committee at 412.622.3325. Purchase tickets online.
Skyline After Dark installation courtesy of Eichenlaub.
Panel Discussion: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Legacy of the World’s Fairs in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh industrialists Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick were both inspired by their visits to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. This inspiration and other fascinating themes are considered in Carnegie Museum of Art’s exhibition Inventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts at the World’s Fairs, 1851–1939 and the Clayton thematic tour Going to the Fair: Meeting the Modern World, which both run until February 24.
Join us at the Frick Art Museum as Carnegie and Frick curators discuss the impact of this fascinating and pivotal world’s fair on the industrialists’ cultural legacies in Pittsburgh.
Moderator:
Bill Bodine, Director, Frick Art & Historical Center
Panelists:
Dawn Reid, Curatorial Assistant, Decorative Arts and Design, Carnegie Museum of Art
Rachel Delphia, Associate Curator of Decorative Arts and Design, Carnegie Museum of Art
Amanda Gillen, Assistant Curator of Education and Collections for Clayton, Frick Art & Historical Center
Sarah Hall,Director of Curatorial Affairs, Frick Art & Historical Center
Exhibition of Important Photographs Captures Life’s Intimate Moments
Yours Truly: Privately Collected Photographs, on view at Carnegie Museum of Art through March 10, 2013, includes 46 new promised gifts from the collection of William T. Hillman.
Yours Truly: Privately Collected Photographs presents 80 vintage prints by some of the most celebrated photographers of the 20th century, including such masters of the medium as Berenice Abbott, Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Alfred Eisenstaedt,
Robert Frank, Helen Levitt, Weegee, and Garry Winogrand. Together, these remarkable works comprise a meditation on the nature of love in its many forms.
According to Linda Benedict-Jones, the museum’s curator of photography, “Yours Truly takes us back to other times. Some of the works are iconic, and will be immediately recognizable to our visitors. Others are virtually unknown yet breathtaking in their intensely romantic aura.” Whether revealing lovers’ intimate embraces, the sensuality of the female form, the tactile joys of the natural world, or the deep bond between family members, Yours Truly’s emotional appeal is as deep as its aesthetic pleasures. A warm and intimate gallery environment, designed especially for the show, envelops visitors in these compelling images.
Forty-six of the photographs on display were recently promised as gifts to Carnegie Museum of Art by William T. Hillman, a collector, artist, and long-time friend of the museum. “Mr. Hillman’s photographs are simply top-notch,” said Lynn Zelevansky, the Henry J. Heinz II Director of the museum. “They are by some of the most talented photographers of the twentieth century, and all are vintage prints. We are most grateful to Mr. Hillman for his promised gifts, and for his continued support of the Photography Department.” The promised gifts represent the work of 28 different artists, 17 of whom are new to the museum’s collection. Yours Truly is dedicated to Mr. Hillman’s parents, Elsie and Henry Hillman, who have long played an important role in Pittsburgh’s cultural and economic development. Mr. Hillman promised seven additional works to the museum in connection with the exhibition, Impressionism in a New Light: From Monet to Stieglitz. When realized, these gifts will have a transforming effect on the museum’s collection.
Yours Truly: Privately Collected Photographs remains on view through March 10, 2013 providing ample time for visitors to encounter these classic images firsthand.
Programs
Lunch & Learn: To Buy or Not to Buy: That is the Question
Thursday, January 10, 2012
10:30 a.m.—1 p.m.
$30 ($24 members); Limited to 25 people
Look at some classic and contemporary photographs with curator Linda Benedict Jones and consider the factors important to building a photography collection.
Picturing People
Saturday, January 19 and 26 (2 sessions)
11 a.m.–3 p.m.
$48 ($38 members)
Photographer Dylan Vitone explores the art of “picturing people” in this two-part photography class. Vitone’s work was featured in the museum’s recent exhibition, Picturing the City.
Valentine’s Dinner: The Art of Food, Wine, and Photography
Thursday, February 14
6–10 p.m.
$122 per person ($110 members); space is limited
Photographs of love and romance in Yours Truly inspire this special evening focusing on the “marrying” of flavors in food and wine. This special evening of art and fine dining includes a five-course prix fixe dinner with wine pairings.
To register for programs, call 412-622-3288.
Support
Support for this exhibition was provided by the William T. Hillman Fund for Photography. General operating support for Carnegie Museum of Art is provided by The Heinz Endowments and Allegheny Regional Asset District. Carnegie Museum of Art receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Japanese Prints and Ivories Tell a Story of Collecting at Carnegie Museum of Art
Exhibition explores influence of industrialist H. J. Heinz and poet Sadakichi Hartmann
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania…An exhibition of two rarely-seen Japanese collections from the early years of Carnegie Institute (now Museums of Art and Natural History) will capture the excitement and intrigue surrounding the museums’ first encounters with these exquisite objects. Opening in Gallery One at Carnegie Museum of Art, “Japan Is the Key…”: Collecting Prints and Ivories, 1900–1920 traces the development of these collections through the two larger-than-life men responsible for Carnegie Institute’s ambitious exhibitions of Japanese art in the first decade of the 20th century. By re-examining the museum of art’s masterwork prints, including works by Hiroshige, Hokusai, and Utamaro, along with the museum of natural history’s delicate, dynamic ivories, this exhibition allows for exciting new building-wide collaborations in object research and conservation, as well as a new look into institutional history.
Sadakichi Hartmann and H. J. Heinz were vastly different men, united by a common fascination with Japan at the turn-of-the-century. Hartmann was a poet and critic of Japanese-German parentage. Flamboyant, waspishly brilliant, and an exponent of modernism and japonisme, Hartmann seems to have masterminded the Carnegie Institute Department of Fine Arts’s controversial early exhibitions of Japanese prints and avant-garde photography. Heinz, a pillar of industrial America, visited Japan through his business engagements and his commitment to Christian ministry work, loaning his rapidly growing collection of ivory carvings to Carnegie Institute in 1910. Both left a legacy in the collections of the Institute, now Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History, and linked Pittsburgh to an international discourse on Japan’s rapidly growing cultural and economic impact.
“Japan is the Key…” presents highlights from these significant collections of rare prints (ukiyo-e) and ivories (okimono). Now spread between both museums, these artworks tell the stories of two personalities, each fascinated by the emerging cultural and aesthetic dialogue between Japan and the West. Both understood that 19th–and early 20th–century Japanese arts combined historic Asian traditions and avant-garde Western ideas in ways that could predict or shape the 20th century. Both also grasped that this exchange affected more than aesthetic tastes, it affected world culture.
As forward-thinking as these men were about the ways that Japanese art would shape modern art movements, their assessments of artworks were often just plain wrong. Hartmann approached his collecting activities with enthusiasm and high ideals, but he did not possess the specialist knowledge to acquire truly great examples of the art form. It was not until 1917 that the Institute learned this, when Kojiro Tomita, a Japan expert from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts visited the museum, and pointed out that a substantial amount of these purchases were second-rate re-strikes. Department of Fine Arts director John Beatty destroyed these prints. He had already hired Edward Duff Balken as the museum’s first curator of prints and drawings, and Balken corrected course, purchasing dozens of important masterwork prints in 1916 and 1918. “Japan is the Key…” will showcase the museums’ most beautiful objects from this period, and tell the story of Pittsburgh’s early encounters with a newly-opened Japan. The exhibition also presents an opportunity to research, conserve, and re-connect the print and ivory collections, now dispersed across the two museums, including a colossal ivory eagle, which was a visitor favorite for decades.
The exhibition opens March 30, 2013 in Gallery One of the museum’s Scaife Galleries.
For a selection of high-resolution images from the exhibition, please contact: gauglerj@carnegiemuseums.org
Important works on view include:
Katsushika Hokusai Japanese, 1760–1849; Yohachi Nishimuraya, publisher; South Wind, Clear Dawn (Gaifu kaisei), c. 1830-1831 woodcut on paper Purchase, 18.14.7
This spare and dramatic image of Mount Fujiis a later, rare, alternate state of Hokusai’s Red Fuji, one of the most famous ukiyo-e landscapes. Printed in a limited range of blues, black, and gray, it epitomizes the aesthetic relationship between traditional Japanese art and modern abstraction.
Japanese; Long Procession of Toads; carved ivory
A skilled carver has transformed a single tusk of ivory into a lively parade of frogs/toads satirizing a Japanese warlord and his retainers on the move. Recent cleaning has revealed fascinating details, including a hammock full of baby amphibians slung between some marchers and the national flag with its central sun symbol colored with red pigment.
Hiroshige Andô Japanese, 1797–1858; Taheiji Okasawaya, publisher; A Night View of the Eight Famous Places in Kanazawa in Musashino Prefecture, (Buyô Kanazawa hassho yakei), 1857; woodcut on paper; triptych Purchase, 18.14.10
Hiroshige exploits the panoramic format of the triptych (three vertical prints side by side) to create one of the few pure landscapes in the history of traditional Japanese printmaking. Despite the realism of the scene, the artist’s emphasis on the province’s eight famous places relates to a centuries-old theme from Chinese poetry.
Utamaro Kitagawa Japanese, 1754–1806; Chusuke Yamaguchiya, publisher; Enjoying the evening cool on the banks of the Sumida river, 1795–1796; woodcut on paper (triptych); Purchase, 18.14.4
As a printmaker, Utamaro is renowned for his graceful line and refined, delicate coloring. The latter is on full display in this triptych with its unusual color scheme dominated by black, gray and rose. The former lent itself to the representation of the famous beauties, geisha, of Edo’s notorious Yoshiwara district. Utamaro’s elegant women set new standards for feminine appearance and behavior when they were popularized in Europe and the United Statesin the late 19th century.
Support
Support for “Japan is the Key…” has been provided by The Japan Foundation, New York, and by Lila Penchansky and Daniel Russell. General operating support for Carnegie Museum of Art is provided by The Heinz Endowments and Allegheny Regional Asset District. Carnegie Museum of Art receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Additional Research
Louise Lippincott, curator of fine art, and Akemi May, curatorial assistant, fine art undertook several months of archival research in assembling “Japan is the Key…” Collecting Prints and Ivories, 1900–1920. Here are some of the people and events that brought these collections to Carnegie Institute.
Cast of Characters
Ernest Fenollosa (1853–1908)
Harvard educated professor, curator and writer who lived in Japan 1878–1890, where he studied and collected traditional Japanese art. His vision of a new world culture created from a fusion of eastern and western civilizations stimulated the collection, appreciation, and imitation of Japanese art, literature, and religion in the 20th century, and his writings were very influential with Pittsburgh collectors H. J. Heinz and Sadakichi Hartmann.
H. J. Heinz (1844–1919)
Pittsburgh business magnate Henry J. Heinz was an avid collector of intricately detailed carvings in ivory and wood, antique pocket watches, and embroidered textiles. Heinz first traveled to Japan in 1902, donating a small collection of printed material to the Carnegie Museum (now Carnegie Museum of Natural History). In 1913, Heinz loaned his entire collection of ivory carvings, primarily Japanese, to exhibit while he traveled throughout Asia and the Pacific as a representative of the Sunday School Movement. Named Honorary Curator of Textiles, Time Pieces, and Ivory Carvings in 1914, Heinz continued to care for his possessions on public display and further augment the Heinz Collection through a series of gifts and loans until his death in 1919.
Sadakichi Hartmann (1867–1944)
A poet and critic of German-Japanese descent, Hartmann was active in Pittsburgh c. 1904–1906 as an assistant to John Beatty, director of Carnegie Institute’s department of fine arts. He was instrumental in launching the Institute’s exhibitions of art photography and its collections of American drawings and Japanese prints. Prints from his collection and the collection of a “Mr. Brown” exhibited in 1905 and purchased in 1906 turned out to be fakes or late editions; most were destroyed by a furious John Beatty. However, Hartmann was an eloquent writer on Japanese art and his observations are quoted extensively throughout this exhibition.
Kojiro Tomita (1890–1976)
A native of Japan, Tomita was invited by Okakura Kakuzō, close friend of Fenellosa, to join the staff of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1908. He became Assistant Curator of the Asiatic Department in 1916 and served as Curator from 1931 to 1963. Tomita first came to Pittsburgh in 1916 to divide the netsuke collection of Lydia S. Hays amongst the Carnegie Museums and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He returned in 1917 to evaluate the Japanese print collection of the Fine Arts Department and gave a talk, “Child Life in Japan,” wearing traditional Japanese dress.
O. N. Onslow (d. 1924)
A mysterious collector based in San Francisco, probably an associate of Sadakichi Hartmann. In 1906 he sent a trunk of Japanese prints to Carnegie Institute. The Institute paid the delivery charges and exhibited some of the prints in 1907. Efforts to return the prints were delayed by the San Francisco earthquake of 1908. In 1917 the Institute returned the trunk to San Francisco, retaining 5 prints for the collection as compensation for shipping costs. At the time of his death, Onslow was rumored to be the missing Arch Duke Johann Salvator of Austria.
Edward Duff Balken (1874–1960)
Balken was a collector of rare books, prints and drawings, and American folk art. In 1915 he accepted a part time position as curator of prints in the Department of Fine Arts which he retained until 1940. During his tenure, inferior works were removed from the collection, and professional standards for collecting and displaying Japanese prints were instituted.
Judson D. Metzgar (1869–1958)
A probate attorney in Moline, Illinois, Metzgar formed one of the best private collections of Japanese ukiyo-e prints in the United States. Arthur Davison Ficke, a lawyer, poet, and son of a Japanese print dealer, collaborated with him. The Carnegie bought extensively at the sale of his collection in New Yorkin 1916. His insightful memoir Adventures in Japanese Prints (1944) describes his growth as a connoisseur and collector.
Yamanaka & Company (founded 1895)
A Japanese art trading company established in New York City in 1895, with outposts in Boston, London, Paris, Beijing, and Chicago. A major supplier of Japanese and later Chinese art and artifacts to American and European museums and collectors until World War II, Yamanaka & Co. was a source of Japanese art for Carnegie Institute in 1918–1919.
Japanese collection chronology
1902
H. J. Heinz’s first trip to China and Japan with his son as unofficial representative of a Mission board, and his first exposure to Asian ivory carvings. Heinz joins the International Sunday School Association; in report to International Association at Denver convention he states “Japan is the key to the Orient…”.
1904
Sadakichi Hartmann published a book on Japanese art.
1905
Sadakichi Hartmann becomes assistant to director John Beatty to form collection of American drawings. In December, the Department of Fine Arts exhibits 95 Japanese prints from his collection under the auspices of Pittsburgh Art Society.
1906
In February, a collection of Japanese objects is offered for purchase arrives from Dr. Olaf N. Orlow, San Francisco, via Sadakichi Hartmann; negotiations delayed by San Francisco earthquake. In May, the Department of Fine Arts purchases 10 Japanese prints from Sadakichi Hartmann, and 27 Japanese prints from B.C. Brown, selected by Hartmann.
1908
First gift from H. J. Heinz – Records give the first indication of a section for “Carvings in Wood and Ivory,” a result of a donation from trustee Herbert Du Puy of a German wood carving and the willingness of “one of our wealthy friends” (H.J. Heinz) to loan his collection of ivories. Heinz donates 36 ebony and ivory canes.
1909
Andrew Carnegie donates Chinese and Japanese porcelain to Carnegie Institute; Heinz loans a small collection of ancient Chinese embroidered silk garments which joined a collection of Japanese embroidered silks from Mr. John Ferguson.
Heinz loans 50 specimens of antique ivories, “to which he has promised to add another specimen which is unique, being the largest ivory carving anywhere in existence.” This may refer to the life-sized eagle.
1913
H. J. Heinz puts entire collection of ivories “one of the finest, if not the finest in the country” on loan to Dept of Wood and Ivory Carvings; Department of Fine Arts exhibits 37 Japanese prints from 1906 purchase and 39 on loan from Dr. O. N. Orlow collection
1913–1914
H. J. Heinz’s life-size ivory eagle from Yokohama goes on view in a special case.
1914–1915
H. J. Heinz appointed “Honorary Curator of Textiles, Time Pieces, and Ivory Carvings”
1916 , November or December
First purchase of Japanese prints for The Department of Fine Arts from the American Art Association
1917
Kojiro Tomita, curator of Japanese art at Boston Museum of Fine Art, delivers talk to children “Child Life in Japan” while dressed in “native costume,” illustrates talk with collection. He rejects a number (approx 33) of Japanese prints in the collection as of poor quality; they are destroyed.
1918, February–March
Purchase from Yamanaka, New York, of 15 or 16 Japanese prints for $3776.25. Exhibition of recent acquisitions of prints and drawings by Department of Fine Arts includes Japanese print acquisitions (14 prints) and one Hiroshige landscape watercolor.
What Are Museums For? The Guerrilla Girls
Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous group of feminists fighting sexism in the art world, will stage a multimedia performance in full jungle drag. The artists will illustrate their history of creating posters, books, and actions to expose discrimination in areas including art, film, and politics. Carnegie Museum of Art director Lynn Zelevansky will engage in a dynamic exchange of ideas with the Guerrilla Girls about the evolving role of women in the art world. Empowering Women exhibition will be open 5–9 p.m. in Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT.
The March 21st session with the Guerrilla Girls at Carnegie Museum of Natural History has been cancelled. Our apologies.
Bodycast: Artist Suzanne Bocanegra and Actor Frances McDormand Perform at CMOA
SOLD OUT!
Bodycast was developed by New York–based visual artist Suzanne Bocanegra and is performed by her and Academy Award-winning actress Frances McDormand. Bocanegra spent time in a body cast from ages 13 to 15 due to scoliosis, an experience that influenced her development as an artist and a woman. Through McDormand, the body cast becomes a vehicle for the discussion of notions of female beauty in the history of art and in life.
Part artist talk, part performance, part essay, part live video installation, Bodycast allows Bocanegra, channeled largely through McDormand, to tell a tale of ancient Rome, Texas rose queens, scoliosis, Scottish tartans, the history of how artists are taught to make art, and how all of us are taught to look at it. Its debut performance is at Carnegie Museum of Art on March 1. It will have its New York premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the fall.
Valentines Dinner: The Art of Food, Wine, and Photography
Photographs of love and romance in the exhibition Yours Truly inspire this special evening focusing on the “marrying” of flavors in food and grapes. Nick Biondi from Majestic Wines and Spirits will discuss Meritage wines and the ancient art of blending grapes (Cabernet, Merlot, Sangiovese, Syrah, Malbec, Petite Verdot, Chardonnay, and Semillon) into wines prized for their unique taste and quality. Space is limited; $122 ($110 members) per person. SORRY, THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT.