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Exhibitions

Tornadoes

March 10 to June 3, 2012

David Maxim, Untitled, April 2006; pastel, charcoal, graphite & water wash on laid paper; Collection of Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts


In commemoration of the victims of the devastating storms that ravaged Alabama and the South on April 27, 2010, the MMFA will install a small exhibition of art inspired by tornadoes, twisters, and windstorms. 

This group exhibition combines objects from the Museum’s permanent collection with loans of work by artists with an interest in the power of tornados. It features a series of mixed-media drawings by California artist David Maxim, sculpture, prints and photographs by Florida-based artist Ke Francis, glass sculpture by Seattle-based Studio Glass artist Ginny Ruffner along with works by artists based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, an area particularly hard hit by the 2010 tornados. 

Delving into one of nature’s most destructive elements, these artists portray the dualistic character of tornadoes. They demonstrate the awe-inspiring power of the beautiful spinning funnels of air while exploring the destruction and tragedy they leave in their wake. In light of the horrific damage left in their path throughout the South a year ago, the works of art in the exhibition provide an opportunity to pause and reflect upon the losses suffered as well as to celebrate the community spirit that aids in recovery and renewal.

Birds of the Enlightenment, Predecessors and Rivals of J.J. Audubon

March 17 to June 10, 2012

Thomas Doughty (1793 -1856), Red Tailed Hawk, 1830-1832; Hand-colored lithograph; Courtesy Thomas Puryear


On voyages of discovery from the 17th to the 19th centuries explorers sought out new species of animals and collected specimens or drawings that would be brought home to eager colleagues ready to carefully delineate new species, make engravings or lithographs, and publish them for presentation to the public all across Europe and America. These are the early years of scientific inquiry, best known as The Enlightenment. Dozens of publications organizing and describing the natural world appeared from the middle of the 16th century to the end of the 18th.

This exhibition from the personal collection of Professor Thomas Puryear of Dartmouth, Massachusetts, includes original bird illustrations from some 75 different publications that involved more than twice that many artists, editors, engravers, writers, printers, and illustrators who gave direction to this endeavor of cataloging the natural world.

Dale Nichols: Transcending Regionalism

March 17 to June 10, 2012

While the Sun Shines, 1936; oil on canvas. Courtesy Dayton Art Institute


Artist Dale Nichols was born in David City, Nebraska on July 13, 1904. He studied at Chicago's Academy of Fine Arts, and remained in Chicago for approximately fifteen years.

Nichols, succeeding Iowa artist Grant Wood, was art editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica from 1942 to 1948, and in 1930-40, served as Carnegie visiting professor to the University of Illinois.  As an early champion of good art in advertising and illustration, he created artwork for direct-mail industrial advertising in the 1930s and 40s.  In 1935, his book elaborating his theories of art, A Philosphy of Esthetics, was published, and in 1957, he completed his book Figure Drawing, published by Watson-Guptill.


Nichols's primary subjects were evocations the farm life he experienced in his early years in Nebraska. He stated, "I feel that an artist paints best what he has been exposed to during his youth. I think my memory paintings of my home state may be my only creations that I sign with full confidence."

This exhibition is sponsored in Montgomery by Corinna and Barry Wilson; Winifred and Charles A. Stakely; Dawn and Adam Schloss

Loïs Mailou Jones: A Life in Vibrant Color

March 17 to June 10, 2012

Mere du Senegal, acrylic, 1985; Loïs Mailou Jones Pierre-Noël Trust


 This exhibition illuminates the life and work of Lois Mailou Jones (1905-1994), an African-American artist, illustrator, and educator who produced a substantial oeuvre of colorful paintings while teaching art at Howard University for 47 years. 

This exhibition of 55 works surveys the vast sweep of Jones's seventy-five years as a painter stretching from late Post-Impressionism to a contemporary mixture of African, Caribbean, American, and African-American iconography, design and thematic elements. Jones received recognition in her lifetime through exhibitions and representation in important museum collections. Her work remains a substantial contribution to American art.

Lois Mailou Jones is organized by the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC, in collaboration with the Lois Mailou Jones Pierre-Noel Trust, and toured by International Art and Artists, Washington, DC. 

The exhibition is sponsored in Montgomery by BB&T Bank; Linda and Larry Puckett; Laura and Barrie Harmon; Dr. Marla Wohlman and Mr. John Crews

Jacques Callot (1592-1635): Selections from the Permanent Collection

April 14 to June 3, 2012

Le Parterre de Nancy, 1625; etching on paper. 2009.11.2


Callot, the first Frenchman to gain international renown as a printmaker, was prolific, producing more than 1400 etchings and about 2000 drawings during his short life.  He mastered the use of the echoppe, an innovative stylus with a slanted oval tip that enabled him to swell the width of a line as an engraver could with a burin.  He also developed a tough new varnish that enhanced his ability to re-cover or “stop out” delicate lines that he wanted to protect from further acid etching.  His skills were recognized early in his life, and his name has subsequently remained among the virtuosos of the medium.  The exhibition includes views of his native city of Nancy and the country village of L’Imprunetta, and selections from his well-known series, The Miseries of War, plus a few prints from his Commedia dell’ Arte series.

Caroline Davis: Gulf Wave Series

June 9 to August 26, 2012

Emerald Coast, Seagrove Beach, Gulf of Mexico, 2009; archival inkjet print; Courtesy of the artist


The Gulf Wave Series is an ongoing project to capture the colors of the sea from beneath the water. The depth of the water, suspended particles, and available sunlight all cause dramatic shifts in color. Davis documents these changes through photographs from the turquoise waters off Grand Cayman Island to the Emerald Coast of Destin, Florida and beyond. Using glass, wide-angle camera housings and print film Davis captures the water’s true color and luminosity in large prints that she makes with a high-resolution scanner, digital printer, and archival inks.

Along the Shore—The Mississippi Gulf Coast in the Photography of Lyle Peterzell

June 23 to September 2, 2012

Heron in the Morning, 2005; archival inkjet print; Courtesy of the artist


Lyle Peterzell was born and raised on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and has been a professional photographer for more than twenty-five years. He worked in Los Angeles, Nashville and Washington, D.C. before he returned home to live and work on the Gulf Coast.  His images of the landscape and natural environment there parallel the art of his predecessor, Walter Anderson, who documented that distinctive environment more sixty years ago.  Peterzell uses contemporary digital techniques to again capture that world in his own way—from the misty, water-graced coastline itself, to the manifestations of mankind’s imprint on that timeless world of land, sea and sky.

Divining Nature - Watercolors and Ceramics by Walter Inglis Anderson

June 23 to September 2, 2012

Birds and Waves, watercolor on paper. Collection of Mississippi Museum of Art


Born in New Orleans in 1903, Walter Anderson attended boarding school in New York, and spent childhood summers with his family on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. He studied art in New York at Parsons Institute, and graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1929. While working as a designer at his family’s pottery business in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, he became obsessed with depicting the flora and fauna of the coastal region. After 1947, Anderson lived in a small cottage in Ocean Springs, and began to make frequent trips in a small skiff to Horn Island, part of the barrier reef along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. There he camped, slept under his boat, existed on minimal food resources, and over a period of eighteen years made thousands of watercolors of the innumerable resident birds, mammals, insects, and reptiles, as well the various flora and fauna. 

This exhibition of a selection of Anderson’s compelling watercolors is from the collection of the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, Mississippi. The installation will also feature a group of ceramic pieces designed by Anderson for his family’s pottery. The ceramics are from the collection of the Walter Anderson Museum in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

Local sponsors for the exhibition are ServisFirst Bank and Joan and Bill Mitchell.

Fabulous Flatware - Non-traditional Tools of the Table

June 23 to September 16, 2012

AJ Flatware, 1957; designed by Arne Jacobsen; Courtesy William Hood


 

More than 100 unusual and unique flatware patterns from around the world will highlight changes in tableware from 1898 to 2011 in terms of style, size and form, functional types, designers and producers, and materials and techniques.  Another 125 patterns will be organized around themes such as: Eating Can Be Fun,  Lovingly Handmade, and Flatware That's Not Flat, to name a few.

The exhibition is derived from the collection of Dr. William Hood of Dothan, Alabama, who has been collecting tableware and flatware for over 25 years.

Fabulous Flatware is sponsored locally by BB&T Bank.


From Gesture to Form—Modern and Contemporary Prints from the Permanent Collection

June 23 to September 16, 2012

Edward Ruscha, Wilshire, Grant, 2001, Color etching on paper; 2001.7.6


Spanning six decades, the prints in From Gesture to Form provide a snapshot of various art movements while showcasing many important artists from the modern and contemporary era. Although mostly known for their work in painting and sculpture, the nineteen included artists found that printmaking allowed them to expand upon their individual ideas in new ways. Some of these artists used the print as an experiment, or to work collaboratively with writers to illustrate prose, while others fully embraced this medium as another form of expression.

On view are aquatints, etchings, lithography, screen-prints, and woodcuts, demonstrating the wide range of printing processes. Each of the artists in the exhibition including Grace Hartigan, Robert Motherwell, James Rosenquist, and Ed Ruscha developed works in a variety of styles such as Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Minimalism, Conceptual and Contemporary. From loose gestural works to hard-edged geometries, and expressionistic abstract patterns to figurative and representational renderings these prints illustrate how artists throughout the last sixty years pushed the boundaries of printmaking.  

Highlights from the Paul R. Jones Collection of American Art at The University of Alabama

September 1, 2012 to July 7, 2013

Elizabeth Cattlett (detail), Three Women of America, 1990, serigraph; Courtesy PRJC, University of Alabama


This series of seven exhibitions at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts brings together prints and photographs from the Paul R. Jones Collection of American Art in the College of Arts and Sciences at The University of Alabama.  Jones (1928-2010) was described by Art & Antiques magazine as “one of the top collectors in the country."  He amassed one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of twentieth-century African-American art and donated much of it to The University of Alabama.  The collection includes more than 1700 works of art in a variety of media by more than 600 artists.

The MMFA exhibition series will feature the following:

• Highlights from the Paul R. Jones Collection, September 1 through October 28, 2012.   Featuring art by Benny Andrews, John T. Biggers, Elizabeth Cattlett, Robert Colescott, David Driskell, Howard Finster, Sam Gilliam, Sidney Guberman, Jacob Lawrence, John Tarrell Scott, Billy Dee Williams, and a photographic portrait of Lawrence by Arnold Newman.

• Michael Ellison Block Prints, November 3 through December 30, 2012.

• Charles D. Rogers, November 3 through December 30, 2012.  

• Ming Smith, January 5 through March 3, 2013.  

• P. H. Polk, March 9 through May 12, 2013.  

• Romare Bearden, May 18 through July 7, 2013.  

The Highlights Series is sponsored by Renasant Bank.

 

Accumulations—The Art of Joelle Ford and Stephen T. Johnson

October 6, 2012 to January 13, 2013

Joelle Ford, Circles of Color, Series I, 2007-8; Paint can lids, house paint left on lids, painted wood; Courtesy of the artist


The exhibition Accumulations: The Art of Joelle Ford and Stephen T. Johnson brings together two Kansas-based artists who playfully transform mundane materials into witty assemblages. 

Joelle Ford looks for value in the unusual and unexpected. Collecting discarded objects from her environment, as well as items from antique stores, flea markets, and garage sales Ford accumulates a mass of material to inspire her creatively and serve as ‘raw material’. 

In her low-relief works, the artist blends painting and sculpture. Color, or its absence, is a key element in her assemblages.  She often uses vivid colors or bold geometries to play with perception; it is not until viewing the piece up close that Ford’s materials reveal themselves for what they are—common objects. 

Stephen T. Johnson also looks to everyday items, yet instead of abstracting the objects he celebrates their uniqueness. The pieces featured in the exhibition correspond to his book, A is for Art: An Abstract Alphabet.  For this series, Johnson composed playful alliterative phrases that form a portrait of both an everyday object and they way he depicts it. 

Prior to making these works Johnson poured over the English dictionary, selecting and grouping words to represent each letter from the alphabet. The phrases provide both visual cues and structure for the piece resulting in highly inventive works of art. In addition, furthering the idea of fun and games, Johnson invites the viewer to look deeper into the work and find the letter hidden within.

Local sponsors for Accumulations are MAX; Doug's 2 Salon Spa.

Psychedelic Mania—Stephen Rolfe Powell's Dance with Glass

October 6, 2012 to January 6, 2013

Glancing Manic Lurch, 2005; blown glass; Courtesy of the artist


The work of Alabama-native Stephen Rolfe Powell, an internationally recognized master glass artist, will be highlighted in a retrospective exhibition organized by the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts as a part of the national celebration of the fiftieth-anniversary of the American Studio Glass movement.

Powell’s work employs a traditional Italian murrine technique, incorporating thousands of tiny beads of vibrant color that he blows and stretches into suggestive, anthropomorphic shapes. His inventive handling of blowing, swinging and torching the molten glass, combined with tongue-in-cheek titles, offer a fresh departure from conventional glass vessels.  

With 45 works by Powell, all compiled from his personal reserve collection, the exhibition focuses on Powell’s oversized blown glass vessels and asymmetrical sculptures. Primarily drawn from his Teasers, Whacko and Screamer series, made between 1988 and 2011, the exhibition also includes the early ceramic works and glass prototypes that convey Powell’s artistic development. 

This exhibition is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, and is also sponsored by Joan Loeb; Corinna and Barry Wilson; Arts Alliance for Contemporary Glass; Dawn and Adam Schloss

William Dawson

December 15, 2012 to March 24, 2013

Flying House, acrylic on paper; Courtesy of The Arient Family Collection


Artist William Dawson (1901-1990) was both a self-made man and a self-taught artist. Dawson created an astonishingly varied body of work created from an assortment of materials including chicken bones, wood remnants, paint and other found objects. Memories of his childhood, his connection to the world around him and to popular culture, along with his personal relationships all found its way into his work. Through a wide-ranging body of paintings and carvings including totems, wood reliefs and paintings, Dawson embodies a wide-eyed exuberance in his depictions of animals and his portraits of friends, celebrities and political personalities while his architectural spaces are futuristic visions. 


Cam Langley—GLASS

January 12 to March 17, 2013

Single Flower (Red/Blue), ca.1995, blown glass; Courtesy of the artist


As a participant in the American Studio Glass movement for more than thirty years, Birmingham artist Cam Langley created hand-blown objects both functional and formally inventive. Langley, trained as a civil engineer at Virginia Tech, transitioned to a career as an artist after a visit with Harvey Littleton, the dean of the American Studio Glass movement.  After learning the techniques of glass blowing at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina, he set up his hot glass studio in Birmingham. This exhibition will feature 22 glass objects that are now a part of the MMFA’s permanent collection—a miniature survey of the artist’s career in glass blowing.  His most utilized forms are represented: single flowers, floral bouquets, goblets, stemware and flower bowls.

Thornton Dial—Thoughts on Paper

January 12 to March 17, 2013

Untitled, 1991, watercolor, graphite, and black wax crayon; Collection of Matt Arnett


Since the early 1990s, Thornton Dial Sr. (b.1928) of Birmingham, Alabama has produced a rich body of lyrical works on paper, often engaged with themes of gender and human relationships. Focusing on the very earliest of those drawings, the exhibition features a group of 50 sheets with Dial’s characteristic and broadly coherent iconography of women, fish, birds, roosters, and tigers, rendered in a variety of media. This pioneering exhibition will present an underappreciated side to the work of Dial, an artist best known and celebrated for his large scale, multi-media assemblages dealing with a wide range of charged social and political themes.

Organized and circulated by the Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with funding in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Frey Foundation, and the William Hayes Ackland Trust.

In Company with Angels—Seven Rediscovered Tiffany Windows

January 19 to March 17, 2013

Detail of Laodicea, stained glass window, c. 1902, by Tiffany Studios, New York


In 1902 Louis Comfort Tiffany created seven eight-foot-tall, stained-glass windows for a Swedenborgian church in Cincinnati.  When the church was demolished in 1964, the windows were saved and subsequently restored.  Each window features an angel that represents a passage from the Bible’s Book of Revelation. The windows utilize a rich and varied palette of Tiffany’s opalescent, drapery, rolled, textured, antique, and flashed glass. While the faces and flesh of the angels were painted by hand, the rest of the windows are plated through an innovative technique of layered glass that imparts great depth to the imagery. Within the exhibition, the windows, in combination with reproductions of selected historical documents and a documentary video of the window’s conservation treatment, weaves together art, history, and spirituality.

This exhibition is organized by In Company with Angels, Inc. and is sponsored in Montgomery by AlaTrust; River Bank & Trust; Burke Schloss

Past Exhibits

The Art of the Theatre

November 1 through January 25, 2009


The Alabama Shakespeare Festival's production of the War of the Roses Trilogy will be the source for this intriguing exhibition of art and artifacts interpreting contemporary stagecraft. The installation will illustrate and manifest the creative design and construction processes that transform the Bard's written word into a 21st century theatrical production in the Elizabethan style.

Sonia Handelman Meyer: Images from the Photo League

January 24 through May 10, 2009


In the years around World War II, Sonia Handelman lived in New York City and worked as a photographer, focusing on the lives of common people who surrounded her. The child of Eastern European immigrant parents, she gravitated towards the poor and dispossessed. Like Lewis Hine and Farm Security Administration photographers of the Great Depression, she believed that social documentary photography could improve the lives of people by communicating the humanity of the oppressed and disadvantaged. Handelman’s sentiments were shared by members of the Photo League, a group of photographers active in New York City from 1936 to 1951. The Photo League was loosely organized around exhibitions, lectures, classes, and a newsletter. Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, Lisette Model, Bernice Abbott, W. Eugene Smith, Aaron Siskind, and Paul Strand were members. Handelman was an active member of the group and she served briefly as its secretary, the only paid staff position. Her Photo League photography has sparked renewed interest. Exhibitions in Charlotte and New Orleans have acquainted a new generation of viewers with modern prints from the vintage negatives made in her twin-lens Rolleicord. Now Montgomerians can appreciate the art of this compassionate photographer whose honest and un-manipulated images provide insight to the lives of Americans who faced the challenges of their own day with dignity. Ghfas hshshjfg

Ancestry and Innovation: African American Art from the American Folk Art Museum

February 7 through April 12, 2009


The collection of the American Folk Art Museum in New York is the source for 39 works created by self-taught African-American artists in the rural South and urban North. This exhibition surveys the Museum's rich holdings of this material, demonstrating the ongoing contribution of these artists to the kaleidoscope of American culture and visual experience. A number of the artists represented in the exhibition are Alabama natives, including quilters Leola Pettway, Lureca Outland, Mozell Benson and Mary Maxtion.
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Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Sculptor of Women

February 7 through May 10, 2009


"Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Sculptor of Women" is the first scholarly examination (and the first exhibition since 1930) dedicated to the work of one of the most widely respected American artists of the turn of the twentieth century. The exhibition features 35 sculptures that span Vonnoh's most productive period, from about 1895 to 1930. It also includes portraits of the artist by her husband, the painter Robert Vonnoh, and several photographs which provide an intimate view into the life and work of this accomplished artist. A short video on the lost-wax method of casting bronze illuminates the complex process employed by the sculptor to capture the fluid modeling and delicate details that characterize her popular, naturalistic portrayals of women and children.
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Patrick Dougherty: Sculpture Installation

March 1, 2009 through May 11, 2010


During March of 2009, North Carolina artist Patrick Dougherty has built a site-specific sculpture on the lawn by the main entrance to the Museum. He used saplings gathered around East Montgomery to create a structure ten to twenty feet tall and thirty to fifty feet square. The sculpture echoes the shape of the brick "port cochere" that flanks the Museum's entrance. The artist used volunteers to gather and weave the truckloads of sticks that are needed to create his signature sculptures. The art is expected to last a year or two before nature takes its course, at which time the sculpture will be destroyed per agreement with the artist. For more information, see the Dougherty Installation page.

Pietrasanta Festival Exhibitions

May 2 through July 12, 2009


The Museum's Flimp Fesival had an international twist this year with exhibitions in the galleries featuring the work of Italian sculptors from Pietrasanta, Italy. The exhibitions, on view until July 12,  focus on the creative process of sculpting, particularly those works carved from marble, which is the prime material utilized by Pietrasanta artists and artisans In addition, an exhibition of photograhpy by Romano Cagnoni, a photographer from Tuscany who has been a photo-journalist for over fifty years, will include photographs that interpret the practices and traditional techniques of the artisans of Pietrasanta.

38th Montgomery Art Guild Museum Exhibition

May 23 through July 19, 2009


The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts is proud to sponsor this biennial series of exhibitions in cooperation with the Montgomery Art Guild in order to give the community to survey the achievements of area artists. Traditionally, the Art Guild Museum exhibitions are filled with contemporary works in a variety of media, demonstrating significant dedication and creativity by a myriad of artists in the Montgomery area, as well as the State of Alabama. Since the late 1950s, the Museum has been partnering with the Montgomery Art Guild to produce exhibitions focusing on the works of artists in Central Alabama. While names have changed, the intent of the show has always been to encourage the production and appreciation of art within the community. Today the two organizations partner not just to produce the exhibitions, but also to provide instructional and enrichment experiences for artists of all ages.

Photographs by Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002)

August 1, 2009 through August 8, 2010


By the time of his retirement in 1992, more than 15,000 people had been the subjects of Yousuf Karsh's portraits.  Not all of his sitters were famous, but Karsh made his reputation by crafting the iconic images of household names.  His technical mastery of lighting and printing enabled him to produce remarkable portraits with rich, velvety blacks, clear, strong whites, and a complete tonal range in between. Over the next few months, many of the master’s best-known works will be displayed in a series of small exhibitions in the Williamson Gallery and adjacent Orientation Lobby. Artists, Architects, Designers, and Dancers will be featured in back-to-back exhibitions February 6 through April 4 and April 10 through June 6.  Picasso, Giacometti, Chagall, Disney, Steichen, O’Keeffe, Warhol, and Nureyev will be joined by Man Ray, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright and others.The Karsh series will conclude with Presidents, Princes, a Pope and More June 12 through August 8.  Large black and white images of Truman,Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan impeccably printed under Karsh’s direction will hang adjacent to portraits of European royalty—Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip, Princess Grace and Prince Ranier.  The exhibition will also include group portraits the Apollo XI crew, and one of Hellen Keller and her companion Polly Thompson.

Beverly Erdreich: Metaphor Boxes and Drawings

July 25 through September 27, 2009


In 2007, Birmingham artist Beverly Erdreich prepared an exhibition that was a striking departure from her previous work. Associated primarily with abstract painting, Erdreich began to research topical issues as subjects for mixed media presentations of drawings, paintings and box-based constructions. The result is Metaphor Boxes and Drawings, which challenges the viewer to consider the larger implications of the most important social and political concerns of our modern world. Erdreich writes, “For the last several decades I have been a painter. My work has been primarily abstract and approached in a rather lyrical manner…. However, the foreboding tragedies of AIDS and drugs, reoccurring tragedies of war and devastation, the dark and continuing prejudice among people, the unquestioned side of religion and the lost innocence of children…. prompted me to want to deal with these topics.” Her responses to these issues take the form of two-dimensional works accompanied by boxes she conceived and constructed in order to prompt the viewer’s contemplation and involvement.
View Gallery

Contemporary African-American Quilts from Alabama

July 25 through September 27, 2009


Throughout history quilts have held lan important and often cherished place in our culture, society and family traditions. Created in domestic settings, quilts serve both decorative and practical purposes. The creator is typically a woman and is not professionally trained, but has learned the essential skills of quilting in the home from her mother or relatives. The quilts quickly become treasured by the owners and often are passed on through the family to become prized heirloomss. Though the materials and techniques may be common, quilts, as process, as art, as image, reflect the very fabric of our history and democracy. In 2004, the Museum acquired a collection of 48 quilts, most of which were created in West Alabama between 1945 and 2001. The collector, Kempf Hogan, assembled the collection in concert with folk art dealer Robert Cargo and their mutual dedication insured that the collection is of both historical as well as artistic significance. Featured artists include Yvonne Wells, Mozell Benson, and Nora Ezell--all of whom now enjoy national renown. The designs of these textiles range from the traditional to the most contemporary forms of expression. The Museum will exhibit selections from this outstanding collection, including all 10 works the Museum now holds by Tuscaloosa quilt maker Yvonne Wells.

Mia Pearlman MAELSTROM

July 25 through September 27, 2009


Sculptor Mia Pearlman creates the ineffable from the ephemeral--her massive works of art are fashioned from paper, and they suggest the transitory nature of life on planet Earth. Featured in this exhibition will be MAELSTROM, a giant multilevel mobile, 12 feet in diameter with a 360-degree rotation. Consisting of six circular layers of cut paper hanging from an aluminum armature, it hovers just above the heads of its viewers. Swirling cut-paper clouds evoke nature's duality both perfectly sublime and supremely destructive.

A Century of Retablos: The Janis and Dennis Lyon Collection of New Mexican Santos, 1780-1880

October 24 through January 17, 2010


A rich tradition of religious painting flourished in the Southwest in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this era of Spanish Colonial rule, painters and their workshops created wooden panels embellished with images from the lives of the saints and other holy figures. These panels, known as retablos, were visual narratives created for churches and homes as aides to veneration of the Saints. This exhibition, organized by the Phoenix Art Museum, features ninety-three Spanish colonial wooden retablos of New Mexico drawn from one of the most complete collections of this work in the United States. The artists, or santeros, were self-taught, and these images continue to influence the contemporary production of folk art in the Southwest.

Movements in Stillness: The Still-Life Paintings of Edgar Soberon

October 24, 2009 through January 24, 2010


Edgar Soberon's classically elegant still-life paintings are grounded in the work of the old as well as the modern masters.  A contemporary painter and printmaker now based in San Miquel de Allende, Mexico, Soberon's works speak to the long tradition of painting still life in the Hispanic world as exemplified by works of Spanish masters such as Francisco de Zurbaran and Francisco de Goya. The artist is recognized for his mastery of technique, his sensitivity to light and textures as well his ability to convey a wide range of ideas and emotions within the relatively narrow thematic range of the still life.

Soberon left his native Cuba at a young age, going to Spain with his family in 1971 before emigrating to New York two years later. As a young artist he studied at the Parsons School of Design in New York City, but returned to Europe in the 1980s. While in Spain in 1987, it was the masters of the Spanish Golden Age of still-life painting that most deeply struck a responsive chord in his imagination.  Together with his appreciation for the modern art of his native Cuba, these influences came to define a style of painting that is a unique blend of past and present.

The exhibition is organized by the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, and will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue.

 

ART AUCTION 2010

Bidding Opens February 6th


 

The Museum’s biennial art auction in support of the exhibitions, acquisitions, and educational programs of the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts will be held on Thursday, February 25, and Saturday, February 27, at the Museum. Click here  to see the items available for bidding.

The Silent Auction will be held on Thursday evening from 6:30 pm to 9 pm, and tickets are $50.00 per person for an elegant cocktail reception and the chance to bid for over 450 works of art.  The Live Auction is Saturday, beginning at 6:00 pm, with tickets at $150.00 per person, featuring cocktails and dinner, with a live auction of 35 exceptional works from galleries around the United States. The range of artworks available is extraordinary—from fine paintings, works on paper and photography, to sculpture, glass, ceramics, and jewelry.

 

The MMFA Art Auction has established a reputation as both an outstanding opportunity to acquire distinctive works of art in all price ranges, as well as providing an exciting, fun-filled auction experience.  The majority of items are included in the Silent Auction, with items as inexpensive as $30.00 open for bidding beginning on February 6th.  The Silent Auction remains open to the public until the 25th, and anyone is welcome to come in and view the works and place a bid.  There is no charge to visit the Silent Auction installation, or to place a bid on any of the items on view. The Silent Auction culminates in the Thursday evening party which allows the attendees the opportunity to place that all important, final winning bid before the closing bell. You do not have to be present on Thursday to acquire an object in the Silent Auction…if yours is the last bid at the bell, you’ve got it!

 

On Saturday evening, the event replicates the elegance and drama of a New York auction, featuring a professional auctioneer from Christie’s, New York, as well as a gourmet dinner prepared by the Museum’s caterer, Jennie Weller.  There is always plenty of work available on both evenings at auction in a broad range of price, with an emphasis on both beauty, as well as affordability.

 

The Art Auction is sponsored by Merrill Lynch.  Please call the Development Department at 334-240-4333 for more information.

Tin Man: The Art of Charlie Lucas

March 6 through June 20, 2010


Alabama-native Charlie Lucas' scrap steel sculptures and vibrant paintings simultaneously combine the aesthetics of Modernist abstraction with the whimsy of folk art. While he has exhibited his work since 1984, most recently, it has been featured in the 2009 book published by the University of Alabama Press entitled Tin Man: The Sculpture of Charlie Lucas. This installation will showcase Lucas' large-scale metal sculptures, borrowed from his Prattville, Alabama, sculpture environment, as well as smaller relief sculptures and paintings. The exhibition is organized by the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts.

Lost in Form, Found in Line: Works by Robert Motherwell

April 3 through June 27, 2010


Robert Motherwell was one of the great painter/printmakers of the mid-twentieth century, and a prominent figure in the movement known as Abstract Expressionism.  This exhibition contains examples of his works on paper - print multiples, monotypes and unique drawings that explore his working process, and particularly the influence of his studio environment.  For this artist, the studio was a sanctuary which was self-sustaining; continually expansive, and revealing of the possibilities that a phrase or poem might provide for a work of art.  About sixty works will be included, along with photographs of Motherwell's studio inspiration walls and of the artist at work. 

The exhibition is organized by the Jerald Melberg Gallery, Inc. in cooperation with the Dedalus Foundation.

Nicola Marschall and the Walker Family at Cedar Grove

April 3 through June 20, 2010


In 1865, Prussian-born artist Nicola Marschall painted a full-length, posthumous portrait of a Civil War officer of the Confederate Army, First Lieutenant J. Mack Walker, C.S.A. The Museum acquired this work as a gift of Mr. and Mrs. Hopson Owen in 1938. Museum staff members have been researching this painting—the artist and sitter— for a number of years, utilizing both scholarly resources as well as local and family histories. This exhibition is a visual summation of this research, which has established connections among the artist, the subject's family and their ancestral home, Cedar Grove near Faunsdale, Alabama. The portraitist, Nicola Marschall, was an itinerant artist who lived at Cedar Grove prior to the Civil War, and for a period after the War when he painted portraits of members of the Walker family. The exhibition will bring together family portraits, historical artifacts, photographic documentation and the lore of this plantation-centered family and site to tell the story of art in the lives of West Alabamians in the 19th century. It will reveal relationships and the dynamics of art patronage within the context of this remarkable period in Alabama history.

Objects of Wonder: Four Centuries of Still Life from the Norton Museum of Art

July 3 through October 10. 2010


Objects of Wonder includes approximately fifty-two works of art from the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida. It presents a cross section of works in many media united by the genre of still life, encompassing works from many cultures and over four centuries, dating from the Ming Dynasty of China to the early 2000s.  A still life is generally a depiction of a diverse arrangement of inanimate objects: flowers, fruits, game, plants and other materials. The earliest such compositions are found in Egyptian funerary paintings, and the genre extends through all periods of art in most every culture.  Accomplished and prominent artists such as Henri Matisse, Georgia O'Keeffe, Andy Warhol, Gustave Courbet, Edward Weston, and Claes Oldenburg, contribute works in a variety of media. to this exhibition. Still life celebrates the significance of even the most mundane of objects, embracing and perpetuating a moment in time that combines experience of real life with artistic representation.

Fabric in Landscape (2000 to 2010): Photographs by Laquita Thomson

August 14 through October 3


Artist Laquita Thomson embarked upon a personal “art adventure” in the year 2000, setting herself the task of photographing landscape in each of the fifty United States and on every continent.  While she has yet to cover some of the continents, she completed her project to conceive and photograph landscapes in each of the fifty states, organizing compositions utilizing fabric arrayed within the subject environment.  

 Thomson’s project is rooted in her West Tennessee childhood and her awareness of the land. ”I drew and painted pure landscapes by the time I was 12 or 13 years old…. (This project) is a response to ‘place’: its landforms, sky, seasons, weather, crops, man’s interaction with all these elements brought about this series of photographs.”

Fabric in Landscape will feature approximately twenty-five of the compositions that were produced by Thomson during her travels around the United States in the last decade.  Her goal was to find distinctive sites that she responded to visually, and then to build a “fabric complement” within that environment.  The results are her meditations on the elements and structures in landscape that normally escape our attention.  

Annie Leibovitz WOMEN

October 28, 2010 through January 9, 2011


 Annie Leibovitz: WOMEN features more than 40 photographs by the renowned American photographer Annie Leibovitz.  Included in this exhibition of Leibovitz’s stunning black and white and color photos are highlights from her 1999 book Women, featuring portraits of notable figures such as Barbara Bush and Oprah Winfrey, Southern heroines Eudora Welty and Osceola McCarthy, as well as formerly anonymous women who take on roles as farmers, miners, astronauts, and soldiers.

 Leibovitz, who got her start as a photographer for Rolling Stone magazine in the 1970s, had access to many of the most iconic musicians and celebrities of that generation. She transitioned from Rolling Stone to Vanity Fair in the 1980s, where she continued to photograph prominent stars, anonymous models, and up-and-coming talents.  Leibovitz remains a contributing photographer for Vanity Fair, however, she also maintains an active schedule of commissioned portraits.

 This exhibition derives from the collection of The Women’s Museum: Institute for the Future, Dallas, Texas, and is sponsored in Montgomery by Bobbi and Ferrell Patrick.

Giovanni Balderi: Italian Marble Sculpture from Pietrasanta

October 28, 2010 through January 2, 2011


 Giovanni Balderi is an accomplished contemporary Italian sculptor, and as part of an ongoing cultural exchange program between Pietrasanta, Italy and the State of Alabama, the Museum will present examples of his work in marble this fall.

Balderi (born 1970) has lived and worked around the famous Carrara marble quarries throughout his life.  He has exhibited in Pietrasanta, Florence, Rome, Pisa, and Lucca, Italy, and in Germany, Holland, and Egypt.  His sculpture is in public and private collections in Europe, Japan, and North America.

As part of the cultural exchange program in the spring of 2009, Balderi and other artists from Pietrasanta visited Sylacauga, Birmingham, and Montgomery.  He carved small sculptures in Alabama marble from Sylacauga quarries.  This exhibition will feature figurative abstractions and floral subjects carved in Pietrasanta from Carrara marble.

Fantasies & Fairy Tales: Maxfield Parrish and the Art of the Print

October 30 through January 9, 2011


Maxfield Parrish was one of the early 20th century's most popular and well-known artists who undertook hundreds of commissions for book illustrations, magazine covers, advertisements and lithographs that reveal both his sense of humor and his unparallelled eye for graphic design. Though modern scholarship pays increasing attention to Maxfield Parrish's career as a fine artist, the immense popularity of his work during the early 20th century rested upon his commercial design work. In many cases, Parrish's original paintings were a direct result of these commercial enterprises. Before abandoning figurative work in the 1950s, Parrish undertook hundreds of these commissions. This exhibition presents a comprehensive sampling of Parrishs printed works, offering insight into the multifaceted relationship between the worlds of commercial and fine art.

Sculpture by Jaehyo Lee

January 8, 2011 through May 8, 2011


Jaehyo Lee is a prominent contemporary Korean sculptor who has been exhibiting internationally since 1996. The artist works in natural materials and steel to build sculpture that emphasizes those materials’ essential natures and complex textures. He frequently works in raw wood, creating clean geometric forms, but he also crafts works from charred wood and nails, emphasizing the beauty of the burnt wood and the polished metal.  He graduated from Hong-IK University in 1992, and is the winner of the Hankook Ilbo Young Artists Award in 1997, the Osaka Triennial Award in 1998, and many other exhibition prizes. His work is included in the collections of the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Korea, the Osaka Contemporary Art Center in Osaka, Japan, as well as other collections in the Far East.

The exhibition is made possible by Cynthia Reeves Gallery, New York.

It is sponsored in Montgomery by The James W. Wilson, Jr. and Wynona W. Wilson Foundation; the Alabama State Council on the Arts; MAX, Your Community Credit Union; and Dawn and Adam Schloss.


Print Portfolios: From the Paul R. Jones Collection at the University of Alabama

January 15, 2011 to October 9, 2011


The Paul R. Jones Collection at the University of Alabama holds a comprehensive grouping of over 1700 works of art in a variety of media, and is one of the largest collections of twentieth-century African-American art in the world. More than 600 African-American artists are represented in this collection assembled by Mr. Jones over a forty-year period. He donated the works to the University of Alabama in 2008.  Originally from Bessamer, Alabama, Jones was educated at Alabama State University and Howard University in Washington, D.C., later working for the Federal Government at U.S. Department of Commerce and in the Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service. He assembled the collection while living in Atlanta, often buying art directly from the artists themselves.  

In keeping with Mr. Jones goal of educating the public, the University has agreed to share some of the many wonderful pieces in the Jones Collection with other institutions in the State of Alabama in order to further the knowledge of the collection itself, as well as to introduce the work of African-American artists to a broader audience.   One of the inaugural projects of this collections sharing initiative will be the installation of a series of five print portfolios in the MMFA’s Williamson Gallery during 2011.  The artists included are John Wilson, Alan Rohan Crite, Lois Mailou Jones, Phoebe Beasley and Betye Saar.   The portfolios feature a variety of printmaking techniques, including etching, engraving, color lithography and serigraphy.


Color and Light Photographs by Carl Burton

January 22 through March 13, 2011


During a thirty-year career as a professional photographer, Carl Burton has documented the distinctive landscapes of Europe and the United States with particular focus on New York City.  His images record both splendid vistas as well as beguiling details. Because he works with a panoramic camera and large, horizontal prints, the viewer is enveloped by the environments that Burton records. The artist writes, “As I work, I'm dazzled by the beauty I see, by the intensity and quality of light, by color, and by the world's evanescence. Indeed, as I look over my work, I realize that I'm trying to stop time and capture a small part of the world before it disappears or is completely transformed. Most of the New York images, for example, now serve as records of places that no longer exist. My images document the subtle—and not-so-subtle—ways that people make their mark on the natural world.”

This exhibition is sponsored by Winifred and Charles Stakely.

Winning IDEAs: Selected Product Designs 2008

January 22, 2011 through March 13, 2011


Winning IDEAs features the winners of the International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) for 2008. The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) presents these awards annually, with an international jury of professional designers and academics selecting the winners.

Each day, we live and work with products whose functionality, beauty, and availability are taken for granted.  Few of us realize that these products are conceived, designed, and put into production by industrial designers.  This exhibition of contemporary consumer products illuminates the design features that distinguish these items from similar but less effective designs.

In 2008, jurors noted a growing sense of social responsibility, the influence of globalization, and a respect for minimalism and elegance, especially in the communications and computer designs such as Apple’s IPhone and MacBook Air laptop. The exhibition features a selection of gold, silver, and bronze award-winning designs from the 2008 competition’s 17 categories:  Commercial and Industrial Products, Communications Tools, Computer Equipment, Design Strategy, Ecodesign, Entertainment, Environments, Home Living, Interactive Product Experiences, Leisure & Recreation, Medical and Scientific Products, Office and Productivity, Packaging and Graphics, Personal Accessories, Research, Student Designs, and Transportation.

Winning IDEAs, organized by the Cameron Art Museum, is the first museum exhibition in over a decade to feature a collection of IDEA winners.

Paintings and Prints by John Lapsley (1915-2005)

February 26 through May 15, 2011


Paintings by Chuck Whitehead

March 26 through May 15, 2011


Chauncey (Chuck) B. Whitehead is the Featured Artist of the 39th MAG/MMFA exhibition.   Whitehead was a prolific Montgomery artist, author, and poet.  He self-published five books and was president of the Creative Writers of Montgomery, but he is best known for his drawings, paintings, and sculptures.  Whitehead appreciated abstract art, but he did not make it.  He painted still lifes, landscapes, animals, nudes, portraits, and a distinctive genre of compositions he called “subliminal painting.”  As he said in 2001, “I place embossed writing on a painting, with the message invisible except when viewed in exactly the right side light.  It is then easily read by the conscious mind adding an additional measure of communication to the painting.”  His earliest incorporation of texts and images date from his time in post-war Japan, and his latest examples were created in the months before his death at age 94.

Thirty-Ninth Montgomery Art Guild Museum Exhibition

March 26, 2011 through May 15, 2011


The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts is proud to sponsor this biennial series of exhibitions in cooperation with the Montgomery Art Guild in order to give the community an opportunity to survey the achievements of area artists.  Traditionally the Art Guild Museum exhibitions are filled with contemporary works in a variety of media, demonstrating significant dedication and creativity by a myriad of artists in the Montgomery area, as well as the State of Alabama.

 

Since the late 1950s, the Museum has been partnering with the Montgomery Art Guild to produce exhibitions focusing on the works of artists in Central Alabama.  While the names have changed, the intent of the show has always been to encourage the production and appreciation of art within the community.  Today the two organizations partner not just to produce the exhibitions, but also to provide instructional and enrichment experiences for artists of all ages.

Download a copy of both the Montgomery Art Guild Thirty-Ninth Museum Exhibition Catalogue and the catalogue for Chuck Whitehead here .

On Paper: The Lincoln Center• List Art Collection

June 18 to September 11, 2011


In celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 2009, 82 limited edition prints and posters commissioned by the Albert and Vera List Collection were exhibited at UBS Art Gallery in New York City.  The MMFA is pleased to present that exhibition in Montgomery. Beginning with the first limited edition serigraph poster by Ben Shahn announcing the opening of Philharmonic Hall in 1962, the Lincoln Center/List Collection commissioned works by a variety of prominent contemporary artists.  Early posters by Marc Chagall, Larry Rivers, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol lent the fledgling program considerable impact and good will.

 In 1970, the List Collection broadened its scope by publishing its first signed and numbered print edition (by James Rosenquist), as a complement to the poster component. Since 1970, the List Collection has published four to six signed editions annually, making the List Collection print publishing program one of the oldest in the country in continual operation.

The List Collection provides a window on the last half-century of contemporary art.  Minimalism, Pop Art, Color Field, and Abstract Expressionism are only a few of the art movements represented in this impressive collection.  In addition to the artists mentioned above, Josef Albers, Elizabeth Murray, Jacob Lawrence, Robert Kushner, Robert Motherwell, Julian Schnabel, Jamie Wyeth, Jennifer Bartlett, Helen Frankenthaler, and many more artists are included. The exhibition is organized and circulated by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

This exhibition is sponsored by MAX, Your Community Credit Union.

Human Traces: L'essere Umano Traccia

June 18 to September 4, 2011


This body of artwork by Alabama photographer Wayne Sides examines icons and metaphors of what it means to be a minority, by race or ethnicity. The connections groups and regions of people have in common and share throughout their history, also was a central idea for the artist. The work uses words and images to draw visual comparisons between the stereotypes inherent in the cultures of both the United States and Italy.

In 2008,  Sides visited Italy as part of a cultural exchange program organized by the Alabama State Council on the Arts (ASCA) and Pietrasanta, Italy.  He photographed the Roma (also known as Gypsies) and on his return to Alabama created art informed and inspired by the experience.  His work speaks to issues of human rights, civil rights, and equality among people—issues illuminated by ASCA’s cultural exchange program and Sides’ artistic efforts. 

Download Catalog Wayne Sides: Human Traces/Tracce Umane


Projections & Reflections: A Collaboration of Visual Art and Music

June 16 to July 17, 2011


Projections & Reflections is a multi-media installation of painting, sculpture, prints, and photographs by Sally Wood Johnson and music by Dorothy Hindman—occasionally enlivened by performance of one or more people.  The artists collaborated loosely to create art influenced by John Cage (1912-92), an important avant-garde musician whose theories of aleatory music have driven the development of art, dance, and drama created and perceived by chance. 

The installation features photographs that capture aspects of the concrete wall outside Johnson’s Birmingham studio and an original composition for cello, French horn, timpani, and guitar, each played through separate speakers in the installation.  The musical parts and instrumental timbres interact stochastically to create an indeterminate flow affected by the random interaction of the arts and viewers.  Johnson says, “the wall is, for me, one huge chance operation.” 

1934—A New Deal for Artists

September 24, 2011 to January, 15, 2012


 The period that produced arguably the United States’ greatest challenges—the Great Depression and the beginning of World War II—also produced art that both reflected the values of the nation, and provided optimism for the future.  1934—A New Deal for Artists is a collection of fifty-six paintings produced under the auspices of the Public Works of Art Program from the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.  The PWAP—which was a component of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal economic recovery program—lasted from mid-December of 1933 to June of 1934. During that brief period, around 4,000 artists from around the nation were commissioned by the program to produce some 15,000 paintings reflecting the everyday life of the nation.  The paintings are a lasting visual record of America at a specific time and embody the country’s hope for a brighter future.

This exhibition is sponsored in Montgomery by Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama; Loree and Owen Aronov, and Terri Aronov; Bobbi and Ferrell Patrick; AlaTrust; River Bank & Trust; Burke Schloss.

Circa 1934: Images of American Agriculture & Industry by Rockwell Kent & J. J. Lankes

September 24 to November 20, 2011


  Despite the economic impact of the Great Depression, not all artists participated in New Deal programs like the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP).  The two artists featured in this small exhibition from the collections of the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Rockwell Kent (1882-1971) and Julius John Lankes (1884-1960), were not employed by the PWAP or other government relief programs.  Kent wrote and illustrated books as he had before the Depression.  Lankes taught at Wells College in Aurora, NY from 1932 to 1939 and he illustrated books. 

  When the stock market crashed in October 1929, Lankes was assisting Kent by cutting numerous woodblocks commissioned by Doremus and Company, a New York advertising agency whose clients included United Founders Corporation and American Founders Group—stockbrokers for banks and investment firms.  These woodblock prints were published as full-page advertisements in the newspapers of thirty-three major cities and in revised form in Forbes, Harper’s, Scribner’s, Time, and other magazines.

  The ad had the effect of associating the client with Kent, the best-known artist-illustrator of the day, whose reputation had been built on illustrations of classic literature and books he wrote about adventure in the arctic and the Pacific.  These graphic ads communicated the courageous spirit of the companies in ways that marketing slogans could not.

  The prints of Kent and Lankes provide a slightly bigger picture of American art produced circa 1934.


The Art of Seating: Two Hundred Years of American Design

September 24, 2011 to January 15, 2012


The Art of Seating presents a survey of exceptional American chair design from the early 19th century to the present day.  The chair is presented not only as a functional item, but also as sculptural object—the chair as art.  Each of the 44 chairs is chosen for its inherent beauty and its ability to reflect its social and cultural context.  Selections from The Jacobsen Collection of American Art are joined by contemporary designs offering a stylistic journey in furniture with examples by John Henry Belter, George Hunzinger, Herter Brothers, Stickley Brothers, Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles & Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi, and Frank Gehry, among others.  The Art of Seating is developed by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville in collaboration with the Jacobsen Collection of American Art and tour organized by International Art & Artists, Washington, D.C.

This exhibition is sponsored in Montgomery by The James W. Wilson, Jr. and Wynona W. Wilson Family Foundation; Aliant Bank; Doug’s 2.

Deep South Subjects by Walker Evans, Eudora Welty, Tom Rankin, and Caroline Davis

October 1 to November 14, 2011


During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the typical Southern work week was somewhat different than it is today. The Southern economy was still primarily agrarian, so Saturday was for “goin’ to town.” Then as now, Sunday was for “goin’ to church.” These twelve images reveal Deep South subjects from various perspectives, picturing the personality of the place in black and white.

Avondale Mills Advertising Originals

October 15, 2011 to January 8, 2012


Oil Paintings by Douglass Crockwell from the B. B. Comer Library, Sylacauga

Douglass Crockwell (1904-1968), one of America’s top illustrators, visited Alabama in 1947 to make paintings for a series of advertisements that Avondale Mills ran in The Saturday Evening Post in 1947 and 1948. He selected employees of the textile company and their children to model for 18 paintings, a half-dozen of which are included in this exhibition—images that contrast radically with the Depression Era art made just a dozen years earlier in the concurrent exhibition, 1934: A New Deal for Artists.

Crockwell’s paintings convey the sense of optimism, financial success, and family strength that Avondale Mills, Alabama’s largest textile manufacturer at the time, wanted to communicate about the company and its 7000 employees as the nation surged into prosperity following World War II. The paintings’ titles are telling: A Saving Wage, That Home of One’s Dream, An Enduring Partnership, Independence, America’s Sense of Beauty, The Fabric of America, and The Fabric of Mankind. Crockwell’s paintings champion Avondale Mills, its employees, and their values of hard work, good health, financial security, and family—values shared with Avondale Mills’ customers.

Color Landscape Photography from the Permanent Collection

November 19, 2011 to January 8, 2012


Almost since its inception around 1839, when the English inventor William Henry Fox Talbot first fixed an image created by light on a photosensitive surface, photography has struggled for recognition as a form of fine art on par with painting, sculpture, prints, and drawings.  The first major exhibition of fine art photography in an American art museum did not occur until 1976, when the Museum of Modern Art in New York displayed the work of Tennessee native William Eggleston and published William Eggleston’s Guide.  Ironically, Eggleston’s photographs were all in color, although color photography had only been practiced since about 1900 and had fought its own battle for recognition by critics and collectors.  

One of Eggleston’s prints from 1984 is in this exhibition, along with images by Daniel Farber, Jim Frazer, Jerry Siegel, and Beth Maynor Young, artists who use a variety of cameras and color printing techniques to capture aspects of the landscape and to express themselves through those photographs.  Despite the myriad differences in techniques and equipment used to fix these images on paper, and their diverse visions, these photographers share a fascination with the worlds around them and a desire to create expressive imagery—a fascination and desire that they share with all artists.

Engravings and Woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer

November 23, 2011 to January 15, 2012


Albrecht Dürer’s engravings and woodcuts are landmarks in the history of art. While his painted altarpieces and portraits brought him acclaim, it was primarily through his more lucrative work in engraving and woodcut that his influence became widespread in Europe. He mastered these media as no artist had done previously, eliciting remarkable naturalism and fine modulations of tone that had previously been possible only in painting. He transformed a crude woodcut medium into a nuanced art form that conveys emotional intensity and formal depth. As an engraver, he followed in the footsteps of northern artists such as Martin Schongauer and The Housebook Master, but he was equally influenced by Italian masters such as Andrea Mantegna. Albrecht Dürer is remembered today not only as the most important artist of sixteenth-century Germany, but as a true Renaissance man who furthered the cause of art for centuries to come.


Art Auction 2012

Held Over Until February 29 - Browse the Catalog Now!


 

 Browse last minute Art Auction Deals now!  Purchases can be made on artwork at its opening bid until 5:00pm, Wednesday February 29. Cal 334.240.4333 for more information.

Auction proceeds have a direct impact on Museum exhibitions, acquisitions, and education programs.  Call 240-4333 for your tickets today.

Dutch, German, and Italian Renaissance Prints

February 4 to April 8, 2012


Between 1450 and the early 16th century, a few artists transformed the nascent craft of printing into an art form of nearly equal standing with painting.  This small exhibition of Old Master Prints from the MMFA Permanent Collection includes the work of several important printmakers of that era: Martin Schongauer, three of the five “Little Masters” (Heinrich Aldegrever, Albrecht Altdorfer, and George Princz), Lucas Van Leyden, and Andrea Mantegna.

Paintings by Mose Tolliver (ca. 1920-2006)

January 14 to March 4, 2012


Mose Tolliver, usually known as Mose T, was one of Montgomery’s most prolific and best-known self-taught artists.  From the early 1980s until his death in 2006, he worked at his home on Sayre Street in downtown Montgomery, making paintings using latex house paint on plywood or Masonite boards.  His first exhibition at the MMFA was held in 1981, and in 1982 he was included in the national exhibition Black Folk Art in America, 1930-1980 held at the Corcoran Museum of Art in Washington D.C.

The subjects of Tolliver’s paintings were largely established by the early 1980s, and included first birds, then animals, people, and fantastic creatures that were products of his vivid imagination.  Unable to stand without crutches due to an industrial accident in the 1960s, he usually painted small works that could be supported on his lap, or laid flat on the floor. He used a wealth of paints and other materials, many of them brought to him by Montgomerians who appreciated his work and regularly purchased it.  

The Museum owns twenty-six paintings by Mose Tolliver, ranging in date from 1970s to the 1990s, and will display a selection of his works from the collection during January and February.