The Official Blog of the Allen Memorial Art Museum

Commencement/Reunion Weekend 2012 Schedule

Thu, 24 May 2012 16:01:13 -0400

Oberlin College Commencement and Reunion Weekend 2012
ALLEN MEMORIAL ART MUSEUM, 87 North Main Street

Commencement Weekend Hours:
Saturday, May 26, 10:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m.
Sunday, May 27, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.

Highlights Tours, led by Oberlin College student docents:
Saturday, May 26, 11:00am and 3:00pm
Sunday, May 27, 2:00pm

The newly-renovated Allen Memorial Art Museum will be open over Commencement Weekend, and the newly reinstalled permanent collection, as well as special exhibitions, will be on view. The interior renovation provided an opportunity to replace the AMAM’s 30-year-old mechanical system to meet the museum’s complex climate control requirements. It also included critical upgrades to gallery lighting, security and fire suppression, as well as the renovation and expansion of storage spaces for the AMAM’s internationally respected collection.

Special exhibitions include: Artists on Artists, Italy on Paper, and Ephemeral Installations and the Aesthetics of Nature.

Open House at the Frank Lloyd Wright House:
Saturday, May 26, 2012, 10:00am until 5:00pm
Sunday, May 27, 2012, 12:00pm until 5:00pm

Weltzheimer-Johnson House, 534 MORGAN STREET

Open house at the 1948 Usonian house. Conversational tours are available, and begin every half hour. Admission is $5 for adults, and free for students with OCID.

WALKING DIRECTIONS: From Oberlin College Admissions Office (Carnegie Building): Walk south on North Professor St for a half mile. Turn right on Morgan Street, and continue for one mile. The house is located on the right side of the street, set back from the road. The walk will take about a half hour.

John Martin is known for sublime compositions with tiny figures...

Wed, 23 May 2012 16:01:18 -0400

John Martin is known for sublime compositions with tiny figures overwhelmed by catastrophic landscapes, carefully delineated architectural structures, and a virtuoso rendering of perspective. An accomplished painter and printmaker, Martin produced more than one hundred mezzotints after his own work. The medium’s rich tonal range suited the drama of subjects like The Fall of Babylon, which he engraved after one of his most important paintings. The hand-coloring attests the mezzotints’ popularity, as it was probably added by the publisher during a later issuing to mask areas of the plate worn by earlier printings.

Image:
John Martin (English, 1789-1854)
The Fall of Babylon, 1831
Hand colored mezzotint; re-engraved lettered print
Friends of Art Endowment Fund, 1974.60

The practice of making copies after another artist’s work has...

Mon, 21 May 2012 16:45:57 -0400

The practice of making copies after another artist’s work has longstanding roots. During the Renaissance, artists were encouraged to copy art from antiquity, as it was believed that imitating great art was the best way to learn. This convention of studying and venerating the masters remained a staple of academic training for centuries. Artists working in non-Western modes of art-making also have a long history of looking to the ancient masters. In emulating the work of their predecessors, artists from cultures such as China and Japan learned valuable lessons about traditional techniques and style.

In addition to its pedagogical function, copying also has practical purposes. Prior to the age of photo-mechanical reproduction, artists often made prints after their own or other art works for book illustration or other forms of dissemination.

Francesco Bartolozzi’s print, after Benjamin West’s allegorical murals in the Queen’s Lodge at Windsor, celebrates British advancements in the arts and sciences under King George III and glorifies the Enlightenment values of reason and knowledge. On the right, a woman peers through a Newtonian reflecting telescope at the H-shaped astronomical symbol for the planet Uranus, which British astronomer Sir William Herschel discovered in 1781 using a reflecting telescope he built himself.

Image:
Francesco Bartolozzi (Italian, 1727-1815)
[after: Benjamin West, American, 1738-1820]
The Genius of Light Awakens Science and Art, 1789
Engraving with etching
Friends of Art Endowment Fund, 1982.96

The Weltzheimer/Johnson House, a 1948 Usonian style home...

Sat, 19 May 2012 12:15:26 -0400

View from the northeast

Living Room Ceiling detail

Window walls, facing south

Mary Ann Weltzheimer Bedroom

The Weltzheimer/Johnson House, a 1948 Usonian style home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, holds it next open house Sunday, May 20, from 12pm to 5pm. The house will also be open over Oberlin College’s Commencement/Reunion Weekend - Saturday, May 26, from 10am until 5pm, and Sunday, May 27, from 12pm until 5pm. If you’ve never been to a Wright designed home, this very approachable and comfortable house makes a great first experience.

The W/J House will be open the First and Third Sundays of each month, through November.

While the artist is commonly present in depictions of...

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:01:37 -0400

While the artist is commonly present in depictions of performance art, this presence is not intended as an exploration of the self as in self-portraiture. Instead, the artist’s body serves as a catalyst for ephemeral actions, preserved only through documents and photographs. Vito Acconci captures the use of his own body as an art-making implement in Kiss Off. For this work, Acconci transferred red lipstick from his own mouth to various parts of his body, which he then pressed onto a printing stone to be transmitted to paper. The artist is thus present not only in the photographic documentation of the act, but in his body’s literal inscription in the final work.

On view through July 29 in the exhibition Artists on Artists.

Image:
Vito Acconci (American, b. 1940)
Kiss Off, 1971
Lithograph
Art Rental Collection Fund, RC1971.5

In the early 1980s, American poet Allen Ginsberg rediscovered...

Tue, 15 May 2012 16:01:51 -0400

In the early 1980s, American poet Allen Ginsberg rediscovered negatives and drugstore prints he had taken over a period of 40 years and began to systematically reprint his old pictures and make new ones.

As Ginsberg inscribed the snapshots directly onto the photographic paper beneath the image, the camera gradually replaced his notebooks as a way of record keeping. Louise Nevelson, New York, November 9, 1986 invites a viewing experience that oscillates between reading and looking and produces the kind of self-conscious observation Ginsberg aimed to capture and foment through his poetry or, as he famously said, “to notice what we notice.” Ginsberg’s understanding of life as sacramental informed his vision of photography as a way to preserve a fleeting moment. This photograph, taken at the first—and last—time Ginsberg met the artist and captioned sometime after her death in 1988, is a poignant and powerful portrait that both records and memorializes their meeting.

Image:
Allen Ginsberg (American, 1926-1997)
Louise Nevelson, New York, November 9, 1986, 1986
Gelatin silver print
Charles Olney Fund, 2010.8

For our final Sunday Object Talk of the academic year, Nicole...

Sat, 12 May 2012 16:01:31 -0400

For our final Sunday Object Talk of the academic year, Nicole Alonso (OC ‘13) will be discussing Claes Oldenburg’s outdoor sculpture and beloved Oberlin landmark “Giant Three-Way Plug (Cube Tap)” from 1970. The talk will meet in the King Sculpture Court before heading outside to view the Plug. You can watch a video of the installation of the Plug here.

The Sunday Object Talk will begin at 2pm. We’ll take the summer off, and then talks will resume in the fall.

Nan Goldin is an artist whose work cannot be separated from her...

Fri, 11 May 2012 16:01:44 -0400

Nan Goldin is an artist whose work cannot be separated from her personal experiences. She often photographed her close friends and acquaintances, and in several instances, turned the camera on herself. Her obsession with depicting the events of her subcultural lifestyle gives Goldin’s work a raw intensity and an unsettling hint towards their narratives. Her style contains an element of intimacy, coupled with the use of lush color to amplify the emotional tone of the work. In this dramatic self-portrait, the viewer is confronted with Goldin’s injuries, her expression a mixture of vulnerability and brazen presentation.

Currently on view through July 29 as part of the Artists on Artists exhibition.

Image:
Nan Goldin (American, b. 1953)
Self-Portrait after being battered, 1984
Cibachrome print
Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Photography Fund, 1993.4.1

Marc Chagall was introduced to printmaking in Berlin in 1922, at...

Thu, 10 May 2012 16:01:00 -0400

Marc Chagall was introduced to printmaking in Berlin in 1922, at the age of thirty-five. The autobiographical portfolio My Life marked the artist’s first serious foray into printmaking, and he completed this suite of etchings within three weeks. My Life drew on Chagall’s vivid memories of his childhood in the Russian village of Vitebsk, and included images of the artist, his family, his childhood home, and his neighbors. In this self-portrait, Chagall presents himself as literally comprised of these elements of family—represented by his wife, child, and parents making up his torso—and home—symbolized by the house balancing atop his head.

Artists have long turned to their own image as a subject. A means of self-exploration, self-portraiture allows artists to portray themselves according to their own wishes, sometimes focusing on their exterior likeness or on their inner personality. Self-portraits provide for more experimentation than portraits of others, since the artist has no external client to please. Many self-portraits are created as a form of self-promotion, intended to demonstrate the artist’s status and skill.

From the exhibition, Artists on Artists, on view through July 29.

Image:

Marc Chagall (French, born in Russia, 1887–1985)
Self-Portrait, no. 17 from the series Mein Leben, 1922
Etching
Gift of Hazel B. King, 1951.32

We have recently added eight new stops to our in-gallery audio...

Tue, 08 May 2012 18:59:08 -0400

We have recently added eight new stops to our in-gallery audio tour. Featured here is Curator of Collections and Curator of European and American Art Andria Derstine - and the next director of the Allen Memorial Art Museum - discussing our early work by Claude Monet, Garden of the Princess, Louvre (Le Jardin de l’Infante), from 1867. We’ve added video that zooms in on details of the work, bringing you closer than you can get in the galleries.

Visit the galleries to hear all twenty-four stops on the tour, with contributions from AMAM staff, Oberlin College students and faculty, and Oberlin community members!

Please join us for the annual AMAM Senior Tuesday Tea, May 8 at...

Sun, 06 May 2012 13:01:14 -0400

Please join us for the annual AMAM Senior Tuesday Tea, May 8 at 2:30pm.

For the final Tuesday Tea of the academic year, and the fifth annual Senior Tuesday Tea, the AMAM solicited papers from graduating seniors at Oberlin College. This competitive call for papers was then reviewed by AMAM curatorial staff.

We are pleased to announce that this year’s speaker will be Claire Jenson, an Art History major. Ms. Jenson will be speaking about the museum’s Tilmann Riemenschneider’s Bust of Saint Urban. Her talk, entitled “Ritual Power and Holy Likeness” will address the rich history of ritual effigies of Saint Urban in southern Germany and the striking portrait that Riemenschneider has rendered in the AMAM portrait bust. The talk will be followed by light refreshments.

In his “Word Portraits,” conceptual artist Mel Bochner created...

Sat, 05 May 2012 16:01:00 -0400

In his “Word Portraits,” conceptual artist Mel Bochner created poems for artist-friends such as Dan Flavin, Eva Hesse, and Ad Reinhardt. Comprised of words culled from the thesaurus that Bochner deemed descriptive of each artist, the “word portraits” similarly imitate the morphological aesthetic of each subject’s art. In Portrait of Eva Hesse, Bochner’s circular motif responds to the organic forms of Hesse’s works.

Image:

Eva Hesse Archive
Photograph of Mel Bochner’s “Portrait of Eva Hesse,” 1966
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Helen Hesse Charash, 1977.52.75.26

In this playful image, mail artist Ray Johnson wittily presents...

Fri, 04 May 2012 16:01:54 -0400

In this playful image, mail artist Ray Johnson wittily presents abstract painters Ad Reinhardt (1913-1967) and Agnes Martin (1912-2004) as a pair of fried eggs. Johnson creates a pun on each artist’s name to emphasize their rhyming qualities, changing “Reinhardt” to “Reinheart,” and “Martin” to “Heartin.”

The exhibition Artists on Artists remains on view through July 29.

Image:
Ray Johnson (American, 1927-1995)
Ad Reinheart and Agnes Heartin, 1970s
Commercially-printed card with felt-tip pen
Ellen H. Johnson Bequest, 1998.7.55

Born in Washington, Lee Friedlander studied photography in Los...

Thu, 03 May 2012 15:54:01 -0400

Born in Washington, Lee Friedlander studied photography in Los Angeles, and initially earned recognition for his portraits of New Orleans jazz musicians. During the 1960s, he rediscovered the work of E.J. Bellocq, an early 20th-century New Orleans photographer, and collaborated with artist Jim Dine to produce a book of photographs and etchings, Work from the Same House (1969). Throughout his career, Friedlander has shown continual interest in the changing aspects of American culture, and his projects serve as documentation of these changes. Of his favorite subjects are portraits of his family and friends; several of these images were published in Lee Friedlander Portraits (1985).

On view in the exhibition, Artists on Artists, through July 29.

Image:

Lee Friedlander (American, b. 1934)
Jim Dine, London, 1969
Gelatin silver print
Gift of John Coplans, 1992.4.1

Our final “First Thursday” evening hours of the...

Tue, 01 May 2012 12:27:14 -0400

Our final “First Thursday” evening hours of the academic year takes place THIS Thursday! All museum galleries will remain open until 8pm.

At 5:30pm, Professor of Studio Art John Pearson will discuss his Mondrian Linear Series in conjunction with the exhibition Artists on Artists, on view in the Ripin Print Gallery.

At 6:15pm, there will be a demonstration of silkscreen printing techniques led by Professor Pearson and Oberlin College Studio Art students Briggin Scharf and Justin Harris in the silkscreen studios.

Talks will be followed by light refreshments in the museum’s East Gallery. Hope to see you there!

This photograph of French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) was...

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:02:14 -0400

This photograph of French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) was one of 33 photogravures included in Alvin Langdon Coburn’s book Men of Mark, published in 1913. In addition to Rodin, Coburn’s book featured portraits of such well-known artists, writers, and statesmen as Henri Matisse, Henry James, and Theodore Roosevelt. Photographed from a slightly lower vantage point and positioned tight within the edges of the frame, Rodin’s imposing visage and billowing beard dominates the composition. The photogravure’s soft focus and grainy texture indicate Coburn’s interest in Pictorialist devices, which aimed to replicate the appearance of the painted surface in photography.

The exhibition Artists on Artists continues through July 29.

Image:
Alvin Langdon Coburn (American, 1882-1966)
Auguste Rodin, Meudon, pl. IX from Men of Mark, 1906-13
Photogravure
Charles F. Olney Fund, 1977.67

Honoré Daumier was a prolific draftsman, printmaker, and...

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 13:01:17 -0400

Honoré Daumier was a prolific draftsman, printmaker, and caricaturist, whose works satirized political and social life in France in the 19th century. This caricature of Parisian photographer Félix Nadar (born Gaspard-Félix Tournachon) appeared in Le Boulevard on May 25, 1862. Daumier’s composition presents Nadar aloft in his self-designed hot air balloon nicknamed Le Géant (“The Giant”), from which he made the world’s first aerial photographs. Daumier’s characteristic wit is conveyed in the detail of Nadar’s hat, which escapes unnoticed in the excitement and intensity of the photographer’s concentration. Daumier’s caption, “Nadar, raising Photography to the height of Art,” is also a clever pun, alluding both to Nadar’s literal elevation above the city of Paris, and to the prevalent debate in the 19th century about whether photography could be considered a fine art.

Now on view in the exhibition, Artists on Artists.

Image:
Honoré Daumier (French, 1808-1879)
Nadar, elevant la Photographie a la hauteur de l’Art, 1862
Lithograph
R.T. Miller, Jr. Fund, 1995.4

For nearly as long as artists have been making art, they have...

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:01:24 -0400

For nearly as long as artists have been making art, they have also appeared as its subject. One current exhibition at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Artists on Artists, comprised of works from the AMAM’s collection spanning the 16th-21st centuries, considers the theme of the artist as portrayed by the artist. The exhibition is on view in our second floor Ripin Print Gallery, and will be displayed through July 29.

The exhibition begins with portraits. Pictured by their colleagues, artists are presented as mentors, comrades, and objects of veneration. Some images highlight the sitter’s personality, while others muse on his status as an artist, often shown at work amongst the tools of his trade.

Red Grooms’s characteristic absurd humor is featured prominently in his series Nineteenth-Century Artists. In these imaginary portraits, Grooms presents some of the most respected artists of the previous century—such as Paul Cézanne and James Abbott McNeill Whistle—as depraved caricatures. Above, we see sculptor Auguste Rodin prancing around his studio in women’s clothing. Grooms employs a wide variety of printing techniques—including etching, drypoint, and aquatint—to achieve diverse effects of line and tone. Nine works from this series are on view.

Images:

Red Grooms (American, b. 1937)
Nineteenth-Century Artists series (Whistler, Rodin, Cézanne), 1976
Etching, aquatint, and drypoint
Special Acquisitions Fund (through friends of John N. Stern in honor of his birthday)
AMAM 1978.3.1-10

Happy 273rd Birthday to Joseph Mallard William Turner! To...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:58:25 -0400

Happy 273rd Birthday to Joseph Mallard William Turner! To celebrate the birth of one of the preeminent English painters, and artist of one of the masterworks in the Allen Memorial Art Museum collection, we are sharing the entry from our recent collection catalog:

“J. M. W. Turner’s stunning View of Venice, one of the most important paintings in the AMAM collection, brilliantly captures the mood and atmosphere of a sun-drenched Venetian day. Rising to prominence first as a topographical watercolorist, then as a painter of historical, sublime landscapes, Turner was the most important British landscape painter during the first half of the nineteenth century.

This painting epitomizes Turner’s light, airy palette of cadmium yellows, whites, and the occasional touches of deep red. It was made for Turner’s friend, the sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey, R.A., and was first exhibited in 1841 at the Royal Academy in London. Reviews of the 1841 exhibition praise Turner’s Venetian pictures for “the clearness of air and water” and as being “a glorious example of colour, leaving, as usual, much to the fancy of the spectator; and absolutely extorting applause.” Here the mouth of the Canale della Giudecca-with carefully placed gondolas- dynamically leads toward the horizon, with the Doges’ Palace (Palazzo Ducale) and the Riva degli Schiavoni in the center, and the Piazzetta San Marco with the Campanile and the Libreria Sansoviniana to their left. The domed church of San Giorgio Maggiore dominates the right middle ground. Oberlin’s painting, brilliantly executed in three layers over white ground, is in excellent condition with impasto and glazes still intact.

Art dealer Joseph Duveen sold the Turner painting to Elisabeth Severance Prentiss in 1925. ”

Sunday, April 22 marks the 42nd annual Earth Day. While many...

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 13:02:01 -0400

Plastic Bottles, 2007

Plastic Bottles (detail)

Sunday, April 22 marks the 42nd annual Earth Day. While many works in the AMAM collection can be thought of through the environmentalist perspective, one of the most visually striking is this digital photo-collage by Chris Jordan, Plastic Bottles. This work depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the U.S. every five minutes. In 2008, the AMAM mounted an exhibition focusing on Jordan’s works called Running the Numbers.

Chris Jordan (American, b. 1963
Plastic Bottles, 2007
Digital inkjet print
Overall: 60 x 120 in. (152.4 x 304.8 cm)
Ruth Roush and Carl Gerber Contemporary Art Funds, AMAM 2009.2