Came across this through Ticketmaster........
http://www.ticketmaster.com/artist/880890
http://www.phillipscollection.org/
Surrealism and Modernism
October 4, 2003 – January 18, 2004
From the Collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach, 1938, Oil on canvas; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT; The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1939.269. © 2003 Salvador Dali, Gala Salvador-Dali Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Following a visit to Hartford in October 1935 to deliver a lecture, the famed Swiss architect Le Corbusier wrote that it was “a small city which has acquired a reputation through the quality of the initiatives of its vibrant museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum.”
As Le Corbusier witnessed firsthand, the once dour Wadsworth Atheneum had indeed been transformed into a beacon of contemporary culture in the 1930s.
The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, founded by Hartford philanthropist Daniel Wadsworth in 1842, is America’s oldest continuously operating art museum. In its early years its collections comprised mostly history paintings, portraits, and landscapes by 19th century American artists. Under the tutelage of its brilliant young Harvard- educated director, A. Everett “Chick” Austin, Jr., who came to the museum in 1927 at the age of 26, the Atheneum became a lively outpost of avant-garde art. With vigor, enthusiasm, insight, and determination, Austin initiated a program of challenging exhibitions and acquisitions that valued contemporary art, whether American, European, or Latin American, as much as the old masters. Austin’s search for the new was unrelenting. His daring exhibitions and acquisitions of twentieth-century art rivaled and sometimes predated those at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Austin’s departure from the Atheneum in 1943 signaled the end of an era for Hartford, but his pioneering efforts set the stage for his successors to continue being adventurous and bold in their choices.
Today the Wadsworth features a remarkable collection of twentieth-century art. Many of the works were purchased directly from the artists or from their earliest exhibitions. This is particularly true of the surrealist works in the museum’s collection. The Wadsworth, under Austin, introduced surrealism and Salvador Dalí to American audiences in 1931 with the first American exhibition of surrealism and the first ever museum purchase of a painting by Dalí. Other works by this Spanish surrealist entered the collection during the 1930s, culminating in the 1939 purchase of Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach (1938), giving the Wadsworth the distinction of having more Dalís on view than any other museum (three paintings and one drawing). There were other groundbreaking initiatives. Having been the first museum to exhibit the American surrealist Joseph Cornell in 1935, the Wadsworth then became the first museum to purchase a work from Cornell in 1938. Examples by Jean Arp, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, and Joan Miró followed during the course of Austin’s tenure. During World War II, European painters, such as Yves Tanguy, settled in Connecticut. Tanguy and his American wife, the painter Kay Sage, became particularly good friends with Austin, and works by them and owned by them, such as René Magritte’s The Tempest (1931), eventually entered the collection of the Atheneum.
Henri Matisse (1869-1954), The Ostrich-Feather Hat, 1918, Oil on canvas; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT; The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1969.1. © 2003 Succession H. Matisse, Paris / Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York
The Wadsworth pioneered the introduction of other great modernists to the American public, including Pablo Picasso, who was given his first great American retrospective in Hartford in 1934. Since the acquisition of its first painting by Picasso in 1931, the Wadsworth has added four others to its collection over the years. By 1935 Austin was convinced of the merits of pure abstraction. He determined not only that Piet Mondrian belonged in the collection, acquiring Composition in Blue and White (1935) directly from the artist in 1936, but also that the innovative and extraordinarily unique sculptures by the American Alexander Calder merited consideration. He included Calder in his 1935 Abstract Art exhibition and purchased the first of many Calders shortly after the show closed, becoming one of the first museums to acquire his work. Unable to travel to Europe in summer 1939, Austin went instead to Mexico and acquired for the Atheneum works of both colonial and contemporary art, including a haunting genre painting by Diego Rivera, Girl with a Mask (1939).
Austin’s successor, Charles Cunningham, had a special fondness for sculpture and English art, bringing into the collection notable works by Aristide Maillol, Marino Marini, Henry Moore, and Stanley Spencer. During his tenure (1944-1966), works by Milton Avery, Stuart Davis, Albert Gleizes, and Paul Klee also entered the museum. Successive directors and curators have added works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Henri Matisse, Edvard Munch, Henri Rousseau, and Maurice de Vlaminck. In more recent times, examples of American modernists and expressionists like Arthur Dove, Willem de Kooning, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Jackson Pollock have entered the collection to provide a broad overview of the major artistic trends of the last century.
Organized by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, Surrealism and Modernism From the Collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art opens at The Phillips Collection on October 4, 2003. It will close January 18, 2004.
The Phillips Collection
1600 21st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009
Hours:
Tuesday through Saturday:
10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Thursday, extended hours:
10:00 am to 8:30 pm
Sunday:
12:00 noon to 7:00 pm
Please note: The Museum is CLOSED on Mondays
The museum is CLOSED on the following holidays:
New Year's Day
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Birthday
President's Day
Memorial Day
Independence Day
Labor Day
Columbus Day
Thanksgiving Day
Christmas Day
Admission Charges:
Surrealism and Modernism and Permanent Collection on Weekends:
$10 for adults, $8 for students and persons 62 and over. No charge for persons 18 and under, or Museum Members. This price will be charged for admission to any and all portions of the museum on weekends. Given that during this time of construction, Surrealism and Modernism is occupying the majority of our available exhibition space, there will be no separate weekend admission charge for entry to the permanent collection.
For further information, please see the Special Exhibitions page
Artful Evenings: As of June 12, 2003, admission for Artful Evenings is $8. No discounted tickets. Please note: Due to the limited number of works on view during installation of Surrealism and Modernism, admission to the September 11th and September 25th Artful Evenings will be $5.
Weekday Admission for Permanent Collection is Free. Contributions are gladly accepted.
Advance individual ticket purchase is available by phone through TicketMaster now. Toll free call: (800) 551-SEAT(7328) (toll free not available in Northern VA, MD, or DC); from Washington, DC call: (202) 432-SEAT(7328); from Northern Virginia call: (703) 573-SEAT(7328); from Baltimore call: (410) 481-SEAT(7328) or online at www.ticketmaster.com.
*Artful Evenings - offering art appreciation, musical entertainment, gallery talks, and socializing during special evening hours-are held on Thursdays from 5 pm to 8:30 pm. Museum Shop is open. Cash bar. Admission is $8.00; Members enter free
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