Introduction
This exhibition takes a fresh look at the museum’s collections, bringing together works from diverse places, cultures, and time periods that are not typically displayed together. The curatorial team approached the installation with a sense of curiosity: How might these different works resonate when placed side by side? What more could they tell us if we put them in new contexts? We searched the collections, reflecting on art’s unique potential to connect us across time and place. We asked: What connections might a video have with a European oil painting? A photograph with a Native American woven basket? A Chinese vase with a print emblazoned with a provocative message?
We collaboratively developed four themes that represent each collection area broadly and in surprising ways. Drawing from portraits and figurative art, Pose looks at the timeless human desire to represent one another and to be represented. Environments explores how artists help us understand and honor nature and place. Expect the Unexpected shows how artists innovate with materials and explore unconventional processes that broaden how art can be made and what it might mean. Color presents powerful pops of pigments, paints, inks, glazes, and dyes that stir the senses.
As the Portland Art Museum undergoes a big transformation, this exhibition offers a preview of the collaborations and creative approaches that will inform installations in the Mark Rothko Pavilion, our new museum spaces, and our original galleries.
Kathleen Ash-Milby, Curator of Native American Art
Mary Weaver Chapin, Curator of Graphic Arts
Julia Dolan, Minor White Senior Curator of Photography
Erin Grant, Assistant Curator of Native American Art
Jeannie Kenmotsu, Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Asian Art
Grace Kook-Anderson, Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Northwest Art
Sara Krajewski, Eichholz Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art
Teena Wilder, Art Bridges Curatorial Fellow
Throughlines: Connections in the Collection is supported by the Museum’s Exhibition Series Sponsors.
Special thanks to image description writers: Barbara Green, Rhonda Barton, Kevin Emmert, and Becky Emmert.
Pose
Humans are social beings. Although many modern societies champion the individual—a concept emphasized in many of the portraits in this gallery—we rely on each other for survival and community and respond deeply to artistic renderings of people. Our depictions of one another have changed over time and can look very different in different cultures. Some of the interpretations of the human form on view here may seem familiar, while others may feel new. They bring up many questions including: What is the relationship between the artists and their subjects? And what does each work communicate about the human experience?
Jean-Baptiste Greuze
(French, 1725–1805)
The Drunken Cobbler, 1776–79
Oil on canvas
Gift of Marion Bowles Hollis, 59.1
Greuze often used his paintings to tell stories, sometimes filling his canvases with cautionary tales. Instead of depicting classical subjects like other artists of his time, he invented scenes with working class people of the day as a way to comment on virtues and vices. Here, we might see the old proverb of “the cobbler’s children have no shoes” come to life.
Sara Krajewski
[Artwork Description: This rectangular interior scene features four figures—two adults and two children—centered in the middle of the frame. Three are turned toward the right, looking at the main figure of an inebriated male, presumably the cobbler, who is facing them from the far-right side of the picture. At the far left is a brown and white dog with its hind leg and tail out of the frame. Next to the dog is a female in profile, leaning forward with her right arm resting on the child in front of her and her left arm outstretched with the palm up. She wears a full purple skirt, a blouse with three-quarter sleeves in a lighter lavender shade that is gathered at the back, and a long grayish-blue apron tied at the waist. A silver white scarf is draped over her shoulders and a matching ribbon holds her brown hair in place. There is a concerned look in her eyes and her mouth has a slight frown. In front of her is a small, bare-legged boy is turned in a three-quarter view. He comes up to about her waist and is dressed in brown sagging shorts and a white shirt that peeks out from a brown vest. His collar-length hair is tousled and his cheeks are rosy. Both his arms are outstretched toward the cobbler. An older female child, positioned closest to the cobbler, reaches toward him with her left hand touching his belly and the other hand hovering lower. She is barefoot with her right heel upraised. Her dress is similar to the woman’s with a long skirt, a blouse that comes below the waist, and a scarf over her shoulders that is tied in front. The male figure with curly light brown hair is turned at an angle with his right arm raised toward the ceiling, knees slightly bent and body pitching forward with his head tilted down and half-closed eyes looking at the ground. He wears grey trousers with stockings covering the area from his knees to down over his buckled shoes. A long white shirt and apron complete the outfit. A wooden chest next to him is topped with a solid wood, handled basket that holds a cloth. The interior space appears to be a workshop with a stone wall at left, heavy wooden ceiling beams, and a trestle support at the far right that has a blanket tossed over it.]
Jackson Lee Nesbitt
(American, 1913–2008)
The Mathew W. Johnson Family, 1990
Lithograph on wove paper
Gift of Bruce Guenther and Eduardo A. Vides in Celebration of Loving v. Virginia (1967) and the Respect for Marriage Act (2022), 2023.7.1
Although the title of this handsome lithograph is quite specific, little is known about the people depicted, and it has been suggested that rather than an actual family, Nesbitt used models for this composition. Either way, it is a sensitive portrait that suggests the quiet dignity of the sitters.
Mary Weaver Chapin
[Artwork Description: This black and white lithograph is printed on woven paper with the texture of the paper showing through. The tightly cropped portrait, occupying most of the frame, shows three members of an African American family from mid-chest up, seated facing left. In the far left the viewer can see a portion of the curved bench on which the family is seated close together. The far-left figure of a male is mostly in profile and has a serious expression. He wears a dark suit and tie with a white shirt just visible. His mouth is set in a slight downturn and he has a gently sloping nose, high cheekbones, and a receding hairline topped with closely trimmed hair. On the right, his daughter leans slightly into him, obscuring his shoulder with her arm visible against her father’s side. Her expression mirrors that of her father and her facial features are a combination of both her mother and father with her nose and eyebrows most like her mother’s. She wears a white, short-sleeved top with fancy trim and collar. Her braided hair is caught with a barrette jutting out at an angle over her ear. The mother completes the grouping. She also has a serious expression along with a prominent nose and deep creases at the chin, cheeks, and around the eyes, which are open wide and staring into the distance. Like her daughter she wears a white blouse with a slightly nubby texture, high neckline with a loose bow at the front, and fancy lace trim. A lace shawl with a floral pattern is worn off-shoulder and covers her arm closest to the front of the frame. The background is plain and done in gradations of grey.]
William Cumming
(American, 1917–2010)
Three Kids, 1968
Oil on Masonite
Gift of Sandra Stone Peters, 86.70.5
Writer Tom Robbins praised his friend Cumming in a memorial tribute: “Much of the power—much of the appeal, frankly—of Cumming’s work is a result of its expressive ambiguity. A Cumming painting is both personal and populist, abstract and literal, hard-nosed and romantic.” The artist’s tender views of people in everyday settings encourage empathy and identification with his subjects.
Sara Krajewski
[Artwork Description: This abstract painting portrays three children in strong geometric shapes and an almost complete lack of facial and body details. There is no horizon line so the figures appear slightly floating in space with strong black shadows cast by their bodies and an ambiguous background of broad vertical strokes of white, pale blue, and grey paint. The child on the left appears to carry a large box marked with a bright orange circle in the middle of the lower section. The child wears a yellow ball cap, a mustard colored tee shirt with thin orange stripes, striped blue and yellow socks and shoes indicated by simple rectangular shapes. The child’s skin is a medium brown shade. The middle figure wears a rounded, brimmed hat that covers most of the child’s face and head, with the lower part of the head and neck formed by two intersecting triangles. The top part of the green shirt has vertical yellow stripes, but most of the shirt is hidden by a grey box that the child carries, extending below the waist. Similar to the figure to the left, the child’s brown legs end in striped socks and shoes that look like blocks. The third child, at right, carries a box above the child’s head, reaching out of the top of the frame with bent elbows and raised arms clutching either side of the box. The child wears a red tee shirt with three stripes on its short sleeves. There are prominent shadows on the shirt and shorts. Long white socks and shoes complete the child’s outfit. The painting is framed in a simple gray frame.]
Yasuo Kuniyoshi
(American, born Japan, 1889–1953)
Girl with an Accordion, 1941
Oil on canvas
Museum Purchase: Ella M. Hirsch Fund, 41.12
Kuniyoshi’s languid female figures and whimsical circus scenes drew on American folk art and his encounters with European art on two trips to Paris in the 1920s. By the late 1930s, his earlier dreamy, sensuous girls were replaced with women alone, deep in thought. From this subject’s pensive expression to the distorted flatness of the chair, a taut psychological disquiet suffuses the work. Even the background seems restless, painted in myriad colors, brushstrokes at turns thin or thick, swirling or jagged.
Jeannie Kenmotsu
[Artwork Description: In this oil painting, the figure of a seated woman occupies three-quarters of the frame. The pensive figure is posed in a wicker chair with the lower part of her body obscured by an open accordion on which both her arms rest. Her left arm, bent at the elbow, rests on top of the instrument while her hand touches the side of her head with her fingers curling against her long brown hair. Her other arm is splayed across the accordion’s bellows. She has a thoughtful and weary expression with downcast eyes and a thin, set mouth. The accordion, painted brown with white scroll-like touches and green bellows, dominates the bottom third of the painting, blocking the view of the figure from the waist down. She wears a rose-colored turtleneck and a grey lower garment. The brown floor is visible on either side of the figure and the background features a wall painted in many colors with swirling brushstrokes.]
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
(French, 1841–1919)
Young Girls Reading, 1891
Oil on canvas
Bequest of Winslow B. Ayer, 35.25
Two girls share a book in a quiet moment, absorbed in their reading and seemingly unaware of the viewer. The artist uses long, sweeping brushstrokes to define the figures, and suggests their easy companionship via their close proximity and the repetition of curved forms. The painting is not a portrait (the two girls are identifiable as models in other work by Renoir), but the artist nonetheless captures the lives of typical bourgeois girls in the late nineteenth century.
Mary Weaver Chapin
[Artwork Description: This Impressionistic domestic scene shows two young girls seated in a parlor, slightly bent over a shared book. The figures overlap in an intimate pose with the taller, back figure in more of a three-quarter view. In the foreground a younger looking girl presents more in profile. The back figure, at left, has reddish brown hair, downcast eyes, a long green dress with a white inset in the middle of the neckline, and a three-quarter sleeve trimmed with a black bow. Her pale white arm rests alongside her skirt and her hand lightly touches the book. The foreground figure, at right, turns her body toward her companion with her head slightly bent. She has a long, blonde ponytail with a red hair bow that flows over a pink dress with puffed sleeves trimmed in green. A matching green bow is tied at her waist. The two girls are seated on plush, rose-colored slipper chairs. A bit of the floor painted in reddish brown is visible in the left corner and merges into a brown paneled wall that makes up about a quarter of the background. The rest of the area behind the figures is dappled green, yellow, and blue.]
George Luks
(American, 1867–1933)
Mike the Bite, 1928
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Lesley G. Shaefer, 55.266
Luks is associated with the Ashcan School, a group of artists who shared the same social realist style in early twentieth century New York. They painted gritty scenes of urban life, including performers and athletes who entertained the masses, as well as the poor who lived in tenements and slums. Mike the Bite portrays a kid from the streets, whose messy appearance and rumpled clothing are unlike typical bourgeois portraits of the time.
Sara Krajewski
[Artwork Description: The boy shown in this portrait, taking up most of the frame, has a slightly mischievous look and stares directly at the viewer. He appears to be crouching so that the tops of his legs are drawn up close to his waist. He wears a rumpled brown jacket and pants with a white shirt barely visible. His face is the most detailed part of the painting with full, ruddy cheeks, pink lips in a bit of a grimace, and slightly squinting eyes. His disheveled hair is reddish brown with lighter broad streaks. The muted background of deep green and black tones surrounds the boy, making the figure pop out more.]
Chaim Soutine
(Russian, 1893–1943)
Le Petit Pâtissier (The Little Pastry Cook), ca. 1921
Oil on canvas
Museum Purchase: Ella M. Hirsch Fund, 40.30
Soutine created several portraits of waiters, bellboys, and chefs from Paris’s luxury hotels. His paintings bear witness to the formation of the hospitality industry as we know it today; at the time, this working class cohort was increasingly visible in fashionable establishments. Set off from the bright red curtain, the cook appears to be taking a break from the labor of the kitchen.
Sara Krajewski
[Artwork Description: A vertical portrait measuring five feet tall by a little over two feet wide features a full-length male figure standing with his hands clasped in front. His left foot is placed out in front of the other and points to the right. He wears a white cap atop a long face with a pointed chin. His ears protrude from either side of his head, with bits of black hair poking out by his ears and at his forehead. Large dark eyes look off to the viewer’s left. He wears what appears to be a long sleeve, high collared white shirt. When examined more closely, the white shirt as well as his cap and shoes are made up of many colors in addition to white; grays, blues, green, yellows, tan, orange and dashes of red applied in broad, rough brush strokes. Similarly, his baggy, brownish pants are painted with strokes of brown, black, yellow, red, orange, blue and tan. To the left of the figure stands a brown chair with ornate slatted back. Behind the figure is a field of mottled red tones making up most of the width of the painting, suggesting a curtain. A narrow swath of reds, browns, yellows complete the right side of the painting running from top to bottom. The many multicolored brushstrokes lend this portrait a sensation of movement.]
Matsubara Naoko
(Japanese, active Canada, born 1937)
Thoreau, from the portfolio Solitude, 1971
Black woodblock print on hōsho pure kōzo paper
Gift of Marge Riley, 88.22.10
Inspired by the essay “Solitude” in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854), Mastubara’s portfolio completes a cycle of prints based on regional scenery and history she made while living in New England. Like Thoreau’s observations in his essay, Matsubara’s viewpoint shifts between near and far. Her close-up portrait of the writer is an intimate portrayal of a person she never met. His folded hands, the lines of his face, even the curls of his beard lend a tenderness to this imaginary likeness.
Jeannie Kenmotsu
[Artwork Description: This dramatic black and white wood block portrait depicts only the famous author’s head and folded arms against a solid black background. He has a weary gaze with deeply sunken eyes, a furrowed forehead, elongated nose, and set mouth. His hair is depicted as a smooth, flat, rounded shape with only a few white lines suggesting individual hairs while, in contrast, his beard has a mass of wildly curling lines encircling the lower part of his face. His chin sits atop his folded hands with the hand pictured at right resting on the other one. Both the hands and part of the forearms are very detailed with oval fingernails, lined knuckles, and shaded veins all visible.]
Robert Hanson
(American, 1936–2011)
Leisa, 2011
Lithograph on paper
Gift of Mahaffey Fine Art, Print Workshop, Portland, 2020.12.2
[Artwork Description: This lithograph of a girl from the waist up floats on a white background with no details of the setting provided. Her head reaches almost to the top of the frame while her clasped fingers point down almost to the bottom. She is positioned slightly off center toward the left side of the print. Her straggly hair is parted on the left and pulled into a pigtail that sticks out on the right side with a clip stuck in it. Her eyebrows are raised, her nose is suggested with only a few lines, and her lips are in a thin, noncommittal expression. She is wearing an open-necked blouse with uneven lines suggesting a pattern and a wing-like ruffle extends from the upper part of the sleeves. Over this is a plain jumper and the mere suggestion of a garment below the waist. Her arms come together in clasped hands that almost reach out toward the viewer with the second and middle fingers threaded together to form a “V.”]
Felipe Diriksen
(Spanish, 1590–1679)
Portrait of Infanta María Ana de Austria, 1630
Oil on canvas
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by William and Helen Jo Whitsell; European and American Art Council; John S. Ettelson Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation; Nani S. Warren; May Van Dyke Fund; Laura Meier; Marilyn Ross Podemski; Janet Geary; Ann Flowerree; Kent and Carol Ann Caveny; James FitzGerald and Karen Howe; Shawn and Lisa Mangum; George and Barbara Dechet; Sharon and Keith Barnes; European Art Purchase Fund, 2017.59.1
Infanta María Ana (1606–1646) was a princess in the royal Spanish court. From early childhood, she was one of the most sought-after brides in Europe. This painting was commissioned in 1629 by her brother, King Philip IV, as she was about to marry Ferdinand III, King of Hungary and Bohemia, and from 1637, Holy Roman Emperor. The portrait was to serve as a remembrance because her family in Spain knew that they would likely never see her again. Her formal pose and impassive expression were considered the height of decorum.
Dawson Carr, former curator of European Art
[Artwork Description: This large-scale oil is a richly detailed, full-length formal court portrait with the princess in a stiff regal pose and imperious expression staring straight at the viewer. Against a deep red drape with sinuous folds, the figure is a commanding presence in a resplendent ballgown. A high white and silver ruff frames the pale white skin of her face with her rouged cheeks and brown eyes that gaze slightly to the right. Her hair is in tight brown curls with red bows below the ears and at the back. A lustrous pearl earring dangles on the left side. She wears an elaborate gown with a tightly fitted bodice and bell-shaped skirt of red, embroidered with gold and silver paisleys. The sleeves, waist, and front of the dress are patterned in silver and gold stripes bordered in black and the cuffs of the sleeves match the ruff at the neck. A double strand of pearls is arrayed diagonally across the figure from left to right, looping around the waist at the right. Elaborate gold and pearl buttons in a floral shape dot the front of the dress and top of the sleeves. A pendant of three large jewels and a teardrop pearl hangs at the top, under the ruff, while five gold rings set with jewels dazzle from her fingers. The right hand clutches a white handkerchief trimmed in silver lace while the hand at left rests on the edge of a red and gold upholstered wooden chair.]
Ka’ila Farrell Smith
(Klamath, Modoc, and American, born 1982)
After Boarding School: In Mourning, 2011
Oil on canvas
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by the Native American Art Council, 2012.100.1
This poignant portrait depicts a young Native girl whose unevenly cut hair reminds us of the cultural genocide inflicted through the Indian boarding school system. She locks eyes with us, forcing us to acknowledge her pain, represented by the red streaks of paint that pour down her face.
Kathleen Ash-Milby
[Artwork Description: Densely colored oil paint portrait of a young Indigenous girl from the chest up. Her face is centered in the frame and her large dark brown eyes appear to be locked staring into the distance as if she is seeing through the viewer. She has a long thing nose and her lips are pressed together with tight jaws. Her dark black hair has been cut to chin length, uneven on the right side with single strokes of burgundy over the black. Three thick vertical strokes of red paint run from below her eyes to her chin. Her brown skin is covered with short strokes of white, yellow, and red. More prominent strokes of white appear above her right eye, over the bridge of her nose, down her cheeks, above her lips, and on her chin and neck. She wears a teal, v-neck shirt, that has strokes of burgundy, white, and black with white, pink, and red highlights. The background is filled with layers of different colors. The top left is predominantly dark teal with lighter teal and gray on top and pink further down around the girl’s hair. There is a small light pink and light blue area above the crown of the girls’ head. The space on the right corner is filled with mostly tan and light brown with white and teal highlights. Darker black with a deep yellow over it fills the space between the frame and the girl’s hair. There is a prominent light pink X over her heart. The brush strokes are bold and give a feeling of movement, but the girl’s face is still, almost frozen. Multiple areas have white accents giving the illusion of light reflecting from the painting.]
Graciela Iturbide
(Mexican, born 1942)
Magnolia, from the series Juchitán, 1986
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Sandra Phillips in honor of Terry Toedtemeier, 2021.61.1
Iturbide’s Juchitán series documents women’s roles in Indigenous Zapotec graceculture, where gender and sexual fluidity are largely accepted and sometimes celebrated. Magnolia is muxe—assigned male at birth but gender fluid. Iturbide met Magnolia at a bar: “Magnolia asked me if I would like to photograph her and I said of course. So then she went to her room and made herself up the way she wanted to. I only photograph people with their permission.”
[Artwork Description: This black and white photo shows a full-length portrait of a gender-fluid person, posed slightly to the right of center against a rough cement wall. They appear in a three-quarter view, turned to the left, holding a small mirror at shoulder height so that their face is reflected in the glass. They have short dark hair with straight bangs, a solemn expression, and prominently shaded cheekbones. The figure is wearing a pearl necklace and floor-length floral print dress with a V neckline trimmed in pleats and flowing cap sleeves that end above the elbows. There is a deep flounce at the bottom of the dress that touches the rough, dark ground. The wall that comprises the background is smooth plaster from the top to about halfway down to where there is a darker grey band of rough concrete. Below that the wall is pocked with spots and is heavily textured. The subject’s right arm extends across the figure with a bent elbow to grasp the mirror’s bottom left edge. The other arm is also bent and only partially visible with the fingers touching the mirror in the upper right corner.]
Julia DolanGiuseppe Bonito
(Italian, 1707–1789)
The Femminiello, 1740/60
Oil on canvas
Gift of The Ross Family Fund of Equity Foundation, 2014.107.1
This painting from Naples is a testament to the city’s exceptional social acceptance of local transvestites known as femminielli. The term, which might be translated “little female-men,” is not derogatory, but rather an expression of endearment. Femminielli come from the Spanish Quarter, the most impoverished neighborhood of the city, as evidenced by this individual’s missing tooth and goiter, a common condition among the poor. Although femminielli cross-dress from an early age, they do not try to conceal their birth sex completely. Rather than being stigmatized, femminielli are deemed special and are accepted as almost a third sex in Neapolitan culture. In particular, they are thought to bring good luck—here represented by the necklace of red coral, which is also thought to bring good fortune.
Owing to wider social prejudice, femminiello were rarely depicted until the modern era. This is the only known representation of a femminiello before photographs made in the late nineteenth century.
Dawson Carr, former curator of European Art
[Artwork Description: A vertical rectangular portrait of two male figures shown from the waist up wearing 18th century traditionally female fashions. The figure on the right is seen mostly from the side and turning to face the viewer. His hands are outstretched holding a red-coral bead necklace near the other figure’s neck. He is light skinned with short brown cropped hair under a blue turban-like headdress that is skewed to the left. He is smiling with lips parted showing his teeth and he has soft, youthful features. He wears an open neck, collarless white shirt with a reddish-pink coat and a blue shawl draped over his arms and shoulders. White full, gathered sleeves and shirt cuffs extend past his jacket at his wrists. The man on the left faces the viewer wearing a mustard yellow dress with a pink stomacher and lacing with a white ruffle seen at the neckline. He also wears a white, ruffled mob cap with a pink bow on top. This figure is light skinned, has short dark hair, heavy brows and an upturned nose. His forehead and face are lined and his mouth is partially open showing he is missing a tooth. His neck is muscular and he has a goiter. The background is a smooth, shiny brown that is darker in some places and appears to be reflecting light. The painting is framed in a black wood frame with a carved natural wood border between the frame and painting.]
Lorenzo Triburgo
(American, born 1980)
Valley Waterfall (Erin), from the series Transportraits, 2008 (negative), 2011 (print)
Pigment-based inkjet print
Gift of the artist in honor of Terry Toedtemeier, 2011.46
Triburgo’s Transportraits series invites viewers to reconsider assumptions about gender. The artist paints and then places their subjects before backdrops reminiscent of grand nineteenth-century landscapes to encourage the consideration of artifice in art, and, in turn, of gender binaries. The backdrops, poses, and camera angle heroicize individuals whose reshaped physical and sexual identities challenge engrained modes of gender assignment
Julia Dolan
[Artwork Description: Color photograph portraying a transmasculine individual. Shown from about the waist up, the figure has their face and neck turned slightly to the left while the rest of the upper body is slightly to the right. Their short brown hair is parted on the right side and cut above the ear and their softly gazing eyes peer out from gold wire framed aviator glasses. A neatly trimmed mustache hugs the upper lip with short stubble covering the lower part of the face and upper neck. The subject wears a red tee shirt with sleeves rolled up, revealing colorful, detailed tattoos. On the left bicep is a large tattoo saying Mom and Dad on a ribbon that twirls around a heart and foliage. Diagonally below this is a second tattoo of a large bee and a third tattoo is barely visible between the other two, where the subject’s arm nestles against their chest. The other arm has a tattoo of a bird with an open beak pointing upward at about elbow height, with part of the tattoo out of the frame. The figure is positioned against a softly focused romanticized landscape with a pink-tinged blue sky on the right side and dark trees bordering the figure on both sides.]
Kehinde Wiley
(American, born 1977)
Likunt Daniel Ailin (The World Stage: Israel), 2013
Bronze
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by patrons of the 2014 New for the Wall, 2014.125.1
This classical-style bust is a portrait of Likunt Daniel Ailin, an Ethiopian Jewish Israeli who Wiley met in Tel Aviv during his World Stage project. The artist depicts his contemporary Black models in a monumental style typical of historical European art. Each individual wears their own clothing, jewelry, and adornment, like the Afro pick in Ailin’s hair. A question in Hebrew on the sculpture’s base asks: “Can’t we all just get along?”
Sara Krajewski
[Artwork Description: This is a classical style bronze bust of a male of African descent. His strongly sculpted features include large deeply set eyes, a wide nose, and full lips slightly turned downward in an almost defiant expression. He has a wide forehead with tight, highly textured hair in an “Afro” style. Protruding from the hair, in the back of the sculpture, is an Afro pick with a handle topped by a raised fist suggestive of a power salute. The words “Black out” are etched into the comb just above where it’s inserted in the hair. The top part of the subject’s shirt is marked with cross-hatching and an embroidered band dipping into a V neck adorns the neckline. The bust sits atop a stand with a scroll that says in Hebrew letters “Can’t we all just get along?” Beneath the scroll is a base of two inverted triangular shapes with a heavy rim on both the top and bottom.]
Andy Warhol
(American, 1928–1987)
Family Album 312, ca. 1970–80
278 dye diffusion prints
Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation, 2014.105.1.1-279
Deeply excited by technology and spontaneity, Warhol first used a Polaroid in the mid-1950s. He quickly incorporated the camera into his daily routine, using the pictures as preliminary sketches for screenprints and paintings, and as social currency when visiting friends or attending parties. This family album, one of six in museum collections throughout the United States, holds 278 Polaroids of Keith Haring, Diana Vreeland, David Hockney, Man Ray, and many others.
Julia Dolan
[Artwork Description: Displayed in a vitrine is a large red leatherette photo album open to show two pages with nine colored Polaroid snapshots on each page. The album is a type commonly available in stores in the 1970’s. The cover has a thin decorative gold border and the loose-leaf pages are covered in plastic sheeting to protect the images, which are arranged in two rows of three photos. All photos are head and shoulder shots with minimal backgrounds. The left side the album, tilted up in the case, has two signed pictures of film critic Rex Reed in the top row, along with one photo of the artist David Hockney at the far right. Reed, with a black shiny pompadour hair style, wears a white shirt with a pointed collar that sticks out from his blue pullover sweater. He is seated on a boldly patterned black and white chair and in the first photo (at far left) the spiky leaves of a plant are visible touching his head. In the last photo next to Reed, Hockney is looking to the left. He has shaggy blonde hair and horn-rimmed glasses with large round lenses. His off-white cardigan merges into the background and he’s wearing a blue shirt and a wide knotted red tie with black-trimmed white stripes. The second row of photos has three images of Hockney wearing the same clothes and presumably from the same sitting. In the far-left photo, Hockney stares straight at the viewer with his left arm bent so his pinky finger is in his mouth and the other fingers touch his cheek. The middle photo has the figure oriented right with his shoulder turned toward the front of the frame and his hand resting on his chin. In the third photo, far right, Hockney is positioned more to the left and his right hand holds a strand of his hair. The right page of the album, which rests flat on the bottom of the vitrine, also has two rows of head and shoulder shots with the top row featuring actress Paulette Goddard. She looks left and her long brown hair frames her face with its arched eyebrows and red lipsticked mouth. Except for her face, the rest of the photo is dominated by her fluffy white fur jacket that hides her neck and body and blends into the background, which is indistinguishable except for the edge of a doorway at the far left. In the bottom row, a picture of Goddard from the same sitting is flanked by two photos of socialite Hélène Rochas. In both photos, Rochas is heavily made up and her brown hair is slicked back away from her face. She wears a boa of narrow black, brown and white mottled feathers over a sheer dark top. In the far-left photo, her body leans forward and her left hand crosses over to the top of her right shoulder. In the last, far right photo, her hand touches the top of her arm.]
Stu Levy
(American, born 1948)
Lillian Pitt, Unmasked, 1992
Gelatin silver print
Museum Purchase: Caroline Ladd Pratt Fund, 93.13
[Artwork Description: This black and white photograph is an assemblage of 20 shots in four rows of five framed with black borders, which create a collage of the artist in her studio. A full-length photo of Pitt is positioned in the center of the work, standing with her head turned slightly to the left and facing the viewer. Short dark hair hugs her round face and she has a slightly apprehensive expression. She is wearing sandals and an oversized shirt with a floral pattern, which hangs over baggy jeans. Her left hand holds a paintbrush while her barely visible right hand clutches a palette. In the lower right of the composition she appears again, more in profile and leaning toward the left. Holding one of her finished ceramic mask creations, she is smiling and wears a long-sleeved black top and heavy necklace. In the lower left she is seen bent over her workbench with a stylus in her hand and adding detail to a clay piece. The top row of the photograph has five images of the studio’s ceiling with its fluorescent lights, aluminum foil insulation, and wooden beams. The next row of images, on either side of the central figure’s head, shows hanging masks, feathers, paints, and other materials along with a shaded window looking out on a residential backyard. The third row has parts of all three portraits interspersed with tables laden with pails, smaller containers, art supplies, and a kiln. In the bottom row there are mini masks in the lower left, bags of clay, the lower parts of the central and right-side images of the artist, and more masks on the floor and in boxes.]
Gabriel Revel
(French, active Italy, 1612–1695)
Portrait of a Sculptor, ca. 1680
Oil on canvas
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Edwin Binney, 3rd, 68.34
Revel captures a strong sense of the personality of this sitter, presumed to be the French sculptor Antoine Coysevox (1640–1720). His steady gaze, sensitive mouth, and attentive posture suggest that we are catching him in an active moment. Coysevox places his left hand on a sculpted head, indicating his profession as well as his skill in his art.
Mary Weaver Chapin
[Artwork Description: This classical oil portrait in a highly ornate carved gold frame shows the upper torso and head of a sculptor. He is seated at his studio worktable, positioned facing left but with his head turned to the right to look at someone who is out of the frame. He fills almost the entire picture from top to bottom. The figure’s cream-colored skin stands out from the dark background, which merges with his full head of long curly hair. He has rosy cheeks, a barely visible mustache and goatee, and full bow-shaped lips. Only his arm at right is visible with his elbow bent and his fingers arrayed atop a small sculpture of a man’s head. The sculpture, which features a man with a bald head, flowing beard, and patrician nose, sits on a table whose edge is visible next to the sculptor. Behind the sculpture, in the upper left, part of another statue is visible; this one is of a man with his upraised arm cut off, a bare chest, and head and eyes tilted down. The sculptor is lavishly dressed in a white blouse with lace collar and cuffs, a black jacket trimmed with fancy gold buttons along the front and split sleeves, and a striking orange and red over blouse with deep folds that drapes over his shoulder.]
Bue Kee
(American, 1893–1985)
Self-Portrait, ca. 1930
Oil on canvas
Gift of Michael Parsons and Marte Lamb, 2005.114.3
Kee worked in various mediums, including painting, ceramics, and photography. Born and raised on a farm outside of Portland, Kee was Chinese American. Despite being severely hearing-impaired and not finishing grade school, he later attended the Museum Art School and became known as a WPA Federal Art Project artist working at Timberline Lodge at Mount Hood and Tongue Point Naval Air Station near Astoria. In this self-portrait the delicacy of the lines create a crispness to the artist’s white shirt and accentuate his facial features.
Grace Kook-Anderson
[Artwork Description: Portrait of a young, light-skinned Asian man, facing left in three-quarter view. He has a small mouth, his lips pursed, thin dark eyebrows, high cheekbones and a long thin nose. His brownish eyes are fixed in an intense gaze off to the left. He has a brown, full head of hair brushed back and elongated ears. Brushstrokes are visible in his hair and skin. Light catches the bridge of his nose, cheekbones, forehead and chin. Some areas reveal the weave of the canvas on which the portrait is painted. The figure wears an off-white collared shirt, with a blue-gray vest with horizontal brushstrokes of white and gold creating texture. A necktie depicted in red, blue and gold brushstrokes is visible at the throat. The background is a rich mustard gold color achieved by multiple brushstrokes filling the entire space.]
Bruce Davidson
(American, born 1933)
Untitled, from the series Los Angeles, 1973
Gelatin silver print
Gift of an anonymous donor, 2018.75.311
[Artwork Description: Black and white photo of an older white woman with a round, wrinkled face, head turned to the right and titled slightly with a confused or annoyed expression. She has tall wavy hair and glasses with wing-tipped frames. She is wearing a black knee-high dress with a fuzzy light colored sweater. Her right hand rests on the top of a metal shopping cart that is holding a large painting with a decorated light colored frame and brown corner protectors. The central figure in the painting is a light skinned woman wearing a light colored dress with low v shaped neckline, tight waistline, and large puffy sleeves. She has a matching bow in her hair. Her eyes appear closed and she wears heavy blush and lipstick. Another woman faces the center with most of her body extending off the right edge. She has dark hair and is wearing a dark dress with a light colored hat. A man with a black suit and top hat is seen in the distance between the women. The rest of the background is not distinguishable. The woman appears to be in a large art studio with multiple rows of tables. A blurred figure stands at the end of the aisle. The photo is surrounded by a large white mat in a plain dark brown frame.]
Beth Van Hoesen
(American, 1926–2010)
Bugs, 1985
Color aquatint, etching, and drypoint with roulette, hand colored with watercolor on white paper
Gift of the E. Mark Adams and Beth Van Hoesen Adams Trust, 2007.60.270
Van Hoesen had a great sensitivity for animals, especially household pets like Bugs, who belonged to Van Hoesen’s printer. Here, Bugs appears to deliberately strike a pose, displaying his luxuriously furry belly and subtle coloring to the viewer. His striking blue eyes meet our gaze with curiosity. Is it possible that animals, like humans, instinctively know how to pose for the camera, paint brush, or etching needle?
Mary Weaver Chapin
[Artwork Description: This work is a foot and a half wide and a little over a foot tall. It portrays a long-haired Siamese cat lying on its back and viewed from directly above. The cat appears fluffy, its overall shape a sideways oval. Its four dark paws stand out against its lighter cream-colored body. Its face too is darker as if it is wearing a mask and a curled mustache. It looks up at the viewer with light blue eyes. Its ears are also dark as is its fluffy tail that trails off the left edge of the work. Its long cream color fur is delineated with dark lines showing its haphazard, shaggy growth. The cat is lying on a red patterned rug. Dark brown flowers, and geometric patterns echo the cat’s own colors. The accents of medium blue contrast with the rug’s red ground. Bugs the cat’s body takes up most of the composition.]
Seymour Joseph Guy
(American, born England, 1824–1910)
Adèle de la Lanceau, 1861
Oil on canvas
Gift of Diana Harris and Gary Piercy, 2012.156.1
[Artwork Description: This oversized painting of a little girl and her dog stands five feet tall and four feet wide. It captures the moment just before the girl throws her dog’s toy. The light skinned girl stands poised at left with her right arm raised holding the black and orange ball while with her other hand she holds her anxious dog back. She wears a white, knee length dress with a full skirt that stands away from her body like a bell. The top of the dress is delicate and lacy with ruffles and off the shoulder short sleeves. A wide pale blue sash is tied in a bow at her waist and accented with a pink flower. The girl’s light brown hair is parted in the middle with ringlets falling to her shoulders. Her expression is serious and her blue eyes wide. The large dog stands next to her at right, its head almost as tall as the girl’s shoulder. The dog has shaggy black fur with white paws and a white patch on its chest. Its head is turned toward the girl, as it eyes the toy, its mouth open as if panting. The pair are posed outdoors, with vegetation rising up the hill behind them. Behind the dog at right, tree trunk sprouts from a small, rocky bluff. At top left, a white house with a red roof sits on a hill overlooking the scene. The painting has gold gilt frame.]
Bea Nettles
(American, born 1946)
Seated Portrait, 1970
Photographs on linen, hand colored and machine stitched, housed in hinged wooden box with velvet covers
Gift of the artist, 2011.74.1
In 1970, the same year that Nettles was denied access to her graduate school’s darkroom because of her unorthodox approach to photography, her double self-portrait was exhibited in the landmark Photography into Sculpture exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The machine-stitched and toned works represented a new experimental thread in photography that gained credibility during the late 1960s. Released from the gallery wall, here the pictures function as three-dimensional sculpture.
Julia Dolan
[Artwork Description: Pair of photographs framed side by side in a wooden hinged frame. Each image is 10 1/16″ x 7 15/16″. The photos are highly white washed with an almost radiant glow. On the left, a light skinned woman with large brown eyes is seated in an ornate wooden chair wearing a flowing white dress. She looks to her right with a pensive gaze, chin resting on her right hand. Her straight dark hair is pulled up into a messy bun with bangs framing her face that reach almost to her mouth. The bodice of her dress is made of a sheer, lace-like material. It is high colored with a row of small smooth buttons running from the dark belt at the waist to the neckline. Pleats run from the back of the neck down the front and there are capped sleeves that end in a ruffle near the elbow. On her right hand she wears an oval ring on her third finger and a solid band on her pinky. Her left hand is resting on her leg and she wears thin rings on her second, third, and fourth fingers. Her white dress cascades to the floor. The bottom has multiple horizontal strips of patterned lace between stripes of solid material. There is cream thread stitching outlining the back and right side of the chair. There is a light pink hue colored over her left chest, cheeks, and left side of her hair.
The photo on the right depicts the same woman in the same dress, on the same chair, with the same hairstyle. She looks to her left, face shown in partial profile. A bright light from above washes out the top of her head and some of her face. Light pink stitching outlines her figure from under her right arm, down to the top of her belt, and up to her right shoulder. Light cream stitching outlines her skirt. The bottom of the skirt is folded under so the layers of lace seen on the first photo are not visible. A pink hue has been added to the top of her dress.]
Cara Romero
(Chemehuevi and American, born 1977)
Arla Lucia, 2020
Photogravure on paper
Gift of Selby Key, 2022.18.1
Romero’s depiction of this Native American woman is modeled after Wonder Woman from DC Comics. She wears the recognizable shorts, corset, and lasso of the superhero, but also moccasins, beaded earrings, braids, and a feather. The title refers to her character or image as a beacon; it is a blend of the model’s name, Arla Marquez (Seneca-Cayuga, Shoshone-Bannock and Blackfoot) and the name Lucia, which means “light.”
Kathleen Ash-Milby
[Artwork Description: This black and white image depicts a costumed individual posed with their hands on their hips and feet firmly planted apart. She looks directly out at the viewer, her chin slightly raised. This power pose evokes a super hero, as does her dress. She wears a strapless top that has metallic stripes that radiate outward with a pair of star spangles briefs and a metallic belt. A stars and stripes, beaded shield is worn as a pendant; a length of coiled rope hangs from the belt. Two wide arm cuffs worn at the wrist sport star shapes. A metallic headband sits on her forehead displaying a star and one feather which is half black, half white. Two bunches of long, dark hair reach past the figure’s waist and are adorned with beaded ornaments. Her muscular legs appear shiny as if she is wearing hose. Mid-calf length boots or moccasins are embroidered or beaded and complete the ensemble. The figure stands out against a plain dark background. The work measures about two and a half feet tall by just under two feet wide. The image is smaller being matted with a narrow band of white within a wider black matte.]
Marianne Loir
(French, ca. 1715–after 1769)
Portrait of a Man Seated at a Desk, ca. 1750
Oil on canvas
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by the Janet and Richard Geary Endowment for European Art, 2013.87.1
Loir specialized in portraits of French nobility and intelligentsia, and they are characterized by a delicate, refined manner and elegant color schemes. Although the identity of this sitter is unknown, the artist powerfully suggests his wealth and status through his opulent costume and his placement in a refined study, suggesting he is a man of business or letters. His sensitive gaze and open regard of the viewer invite us into the composition.
Mary Weaver Chapin
[Artwork Description: This large portrait is a little over 3 feet in height and a little under 3 feet in width and features a light skinned man, seated at an ornate desk. He sits facing us with his left elbow leaning on a book opened on the table. His left hand rests under his chin. His right hand is resting on his knee. His gaze is directed at the viewer and he smiles slightly with unparted lips. He is dressed in a long coat in a muted grape purple color with deep turned back cuffs of leopard fur that reach almost to the elbow. Leopard fur also lined the front of the coat along with a row of covered buttons. Flounces of intricate white, ruffled lace peak out from the cuffs and collar. He wears a patterned gray and gold brocade waistcoat with purple knee breeches and grey stockings. His silver-gray hair is set in rolled curls away from the forehead and in rows on the side of the head. He has pale gray eyebrows, dark brown eyes and light skin with rosy cheeks. His lips are full but small with a pronounced cupid’s bow. The desk or table he sits at is edged in gilt gold and the legs of the table bear carved scrollwork that features a human face in profile. The man sits in a dark green upholstered chair that is also edged in gold. Behind the figure, there appears to be a paneling with vertical, cream colored strips decorating a blue-gray wall. The portrait is framed in an ornate gold frame that is carved and gilt and measures about a hands width all around.]
Beth Van Hoesen
(American, 1926–2010)
Checked Suit, 1968/70
Etching, drypoint, and color aquatint, hand colored with gouache and watercolor on cream paper
Gift of the E. Mark Adams and Beth Van Hoesen Adams Trust, 2007.60.590
The artist’s husband, Mark Adams, was the sitter for this portrait, but the true subject may be the act of posing itself. In a series of drawings and prints spanning several years, Van Hoesen captured Adams in his checkered suit. The set of his mouth and stiffness of his posture suggest that he has grown weary of posing. The evident sensitivity and gentle humor point to the long and intimate relationship between artist and sitter.
Mary Weaver Chapin
[Artwork Description: A vertical portrait roughly two feet high by 18 inches wide of a seated man in a bold red and black checked suit shown from the knees up. The man sits facing the viewer, seeming to look beyond us with pale blue eyes. The “buffalo plaid” suit with its large chunky blocks of black and red squares, is worn with a white shirt long and black tie. His hands rest on his thighs, with his right hand lying flat on his leg and the fingers of the left hand curled under. The slightly hairy hands bear a plain band on the left ring finger. The figure has short dark hair, dark eyebrows, a closely trimmed dark beard and mustache. Ears protrude slightly near graying hair at the sides of the head. The figure’s details appear drawn rather than painted with crosshatching delineating the plaid and the tie. The background is white and bare. A simple, narrow dark frame surrounds the portrait. The artist has noted the work’s title and number at bottom next to her signature.]
Environments
Artists immerse us in a sense of place. Some investigate time and space in the natural world, and how humans record its passing. Some contemplate the world around us by its borders, or by imagining what the horizon might hold. Other artists evoke the wonder of nature through close observation or expressing the feeling of a particular locale. Their work asks us to consider ourselves and our environment from different perspectives. What does it mean to interact with, and be a part of—but sometimes apart from—the world around us?
Francesco Fidanza
(Italian, 1747–1819)
Vesuvius Erupting at Night, ca. 1790
Oil on canvas
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by the European and American Art Council, Mr. and Mrs. John A. Pritzker, and Shawn and Lisa Magnum; presented at the 2013 New for the Wall, 2013.86.1
The Bay of Naples became a major tourist destination in the eighteenth century because Vesuvius was in the midst of a prolonged period of volcanic activity. Paintings of eruptions were usually set at night to contrast the dramatic pyrotechnics of untamed nature with the cool serenity and constancy of the moon. Fidanza’s view reflects contemporary tastes for the “sublime,” a term then applied to natural forces of such awesome power that they instill pleasurable horror in viewers.
Dawson Carr, former curator of European Art
[Artwork Description: This painting is a little under two feet wide and just over one foot high. It depicts the dramatic moment a volcano erupts by moonlight beside a large body of water. The upper two thirds of the work is devoted to the volcano and the night sky. Vesuvius sits at middle left spewing orange fire upwards. Smoke billows in all directions, drifting across the sky to the right. The eruption near the mouth of the volcano is bright and almost white, indicating high temperatures. It seems to cast the plumes of smoke in light and shadow. The smoke dissipates towards the upper edges of the painting revealing dark blue sky. At far right middle, the full moon glows silver between parted clouds. It is contrasted by stone ramparts on the right edge that stand in the shadows. The bottom third of the work depicts the smooth body of water, a tall ship in the middle distance and another boat with spectators watching the eruption. At far left middle, a ship with tall masts and rigging is pictured on the water with the mountain erupting behind it in the distance. The volcano is so bright it throws the ship into silhouette. Light bounces off the light-colored sails that are furled tightly away. Orange-yellow light is reflected on the water where several small boats and their crews appear to take in the spectacle. In the foreground center, another smaller boat holding half a dozen figures also has its sails furled. The long yardarm that crosses the vertical mast seems to point to the volcano. On the rocky shore by the boat three figures seem to confer and point the phenomenon. They are dressed in draped robes with elaborate turbans. They are bathed in the glow of the moon and volcano.]
Childe Hassam
(American, 1859–1935)
Mount Hood, 1908
Oil on canvas
Gift of Henry Failing Cabell, 53.22
Hassam is best known for his New England scenes, but his depictions of Oregon from his visits in 1904 and 1908 equally capture a breadth of place. This painting reflects the artist’s quick and seemingly effortless execution. Patron and fellow painter Charles Erskine Scott Wood said of Hassam: “His landscapes, even the largest, are painted in one ‘go’—say from two to five hours with possibly some reconsideration or additional touches next day; but essentially the picture is done at once.”
Grace Kook-Anderson
[Artwork Description: This horizontal landscape painting of Mount Hood and the city of Portland is about two feet wide and a foot and a half tall. It is framed simply in a wide flat gold gilt frame with delicate carved details at the corners. It depicts the triangle shaped mountain as seen from a distance with the city spreading out beneath it. The painting is divided in half horizontally with Hood and the sky in the upper half and the foothills and the city in the lower half. The mountain is covered in snow in shades of cream, pale blue and lavender especially where shadows fall on the mountain face. Easily discernible brushstrokes in pale pink streak across the gray blue sky. They blend with cream colored strokes to create clouds that appear to drift across the sky. Beneath the mountains, is a band of blue-gray foothills. The city below them is depicted as a series of dots and dashes in blues, grays, pinks and sage greens. A few vertical brushstrokes evoke tall pines in the foreground. The effect is the city as seen from a high vantage point and from a distance. The artist’s signature and date are at lower left.]
Kari Morgan
(Nisga’a and Canadian, born 1989)
Aks (Water), 2021
Acrylic on birch
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by Mary Sayler, 2022.16.1
This is one of four paintings representing natural elements, including fire, earth and sky. Morgan expresses the fluid forms of water utilizing the Northwest Coast formline design tradition. Her depiction represents water not as calm and passive, but as an active force, calling to mind destructive waves or tsunamis. The swirl of blue tones seems to be barely contained within the square field of the wood panel ground, embodying the energy and might of the ocean.
Kathleen Ash-Milby
[Artwork Description: This work measures a little over three feet square and under two inches thick. It uses two tones of blue to illustrate the movement of water. The base of the work is a light, natural wood color with undulating wood grain visible. A pale cool blue color contrasts with a deep ocean blue. Graphic formline shapes like a U, an S, and an ovoid, an oval shape with one long flat side, join together to create wave-like patterns that swirl and swell. The design loosely resembles a bird – body extending from the bottom left corner with a beak like shape touching the right edge. Swirled wings extend to the top and bottom. The shapes merge to make a series of wave shapes that seem curl over each other and cover most of the work’s surface. The upper right corner remains free of the swirling shapes.]
Beauford Delaney
(American, 1901–1979)
Twilight Street, 1946
Oil and mixed media on Masonite
Gift of Martha Ullman West in memory of Allen Ullman, 2021.51.1
Delaney frequently painted his Greenwich Village neighborhood in New York, often depicting the same streetlamp, manhole cover, and corner building. He applied his bright paint thickly with short, repetitive brushstrokes in a way that captures radiating energy in the city. Delaney was part of a tight knit, inclusive community of artists. The original owner of this work, painter Allen Ullman, was his close friend.
Sara Krajewski
[Artwork Description: This street scene is roughly two feet high by three feet wide and features thickly applied paint creating a highly textured surface. In the middle ground, the scene depicts two buildings, side by side. One is low and long with a putty-colored exterior with orange trim and a decorative cornice with a round ornament the roofline’s center. The other building is tall and narrow. It’s olive green with a red band running across the top. Three dark windows appear below the band. A large putty colored window and door are at street level. The side of the tall building is in view and is a solid dark brown shape like a set of three stairs leading downward. A sidewalk runs around the two sides of the building visible. The pavement is creamy white, and wheat colored with a black traffic light and small red shape that may be a fire plug or another traffic signal situated at left. On the far right in the foreground is a large traffic light. It’s an old-fashioned post style light in dark brown with red accents. A greenish halo appears to surround the upper part of the signal post. The street between the buildings and the traffic light resembles a pastel patchwork of squares in pink, blue, brick red and turquoise. A round circle evoking a gray-green manhole cover is at lower center. A smaller traffic signpost in deep red is located on the left in the foreground. The sky above undulates and swirls with clouds in purple, green, deep blue and cream. A small crescent moon is at the top right. This scene’s details have a cartoon quality, like they are two dimensional props. The thickly applied paint creates peaks and valleys adding a surreal feeling. The work’s frame is a simple, matte gray wood.]
Chris McCaw
(American, born 1971)
Sunburned GSP #428 (Sunset, Sunrise, Arctic Circle, Alaska), 2010
Unique gelatin silver paper negatives
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by the Photography Council, 2011.1.1a–c
McCaw’s photographs merge nineteenth-century photographic technology with contemporary sensibilities. The artist exposes each sheet of photographic paper in his camera for many hours, allowing the sunlight that passes through the lens to mark—and even burn—it. This one-of-a-kind triptych, produced in the Arctic Circle during the summer solstice, traces the arc of the sun, which almost sinks below the horizon before rising again during one of the longest days of the year.
Julia Dolan
[Artwork Description: This oversized landscape is 6 feet long and just under two feet tall. It’s composed of three panels of silver paper negatives that depict the arc of the sun moving across the sky. The sky makes up the top three quarters of the triptych. It appears as a smooth field of silver-gray that slightly darkens towards the upper edge. A low mountain ridge appears at lower left with the horizon line just below it. The foreground contains low lying shrub land with no trees visible. An arc of white edged in black swoops across all three panels. It starts at far left center and dips down where it briefly disappears behind the low-lying mountain. It appears in the middle panel where it continues its trajectory upward finishing at far-right center. A narrow white matte and plain narrow black frame finishes the work.]
Claude Monet
(French, 1840–1926)
River at Lavacourt, 1879
Oil on canvas
Bequest of Charles Francis Adams, 43.8.33
The river Seine was one of Monet’s frequent subjects. Here, the artist pictures the river’s bending path at the village of Lavacourt, directly across the river from Vétheuil, where he lived for three years. Monet’s home was only yards from the river’s shore, allowing him to study and paint this rural scene in many weather conditions. Here cool hues capture water, sky, and hillsides, while warmer tones of brown, red, and yellow distinguish the buildings.
Sara Krajewski
[Artwork Description: This landscape painting is just over two feet wide and just under two feet high. It depicts a river scene with a small boat docked near a row of two- and three-story buildings. The river takes up much of the lower third of the work with the water portrayed in pale grays, and blues, putty and touches of pale mustard. In the center, stand a row of brownish trees with upward reaching, bare branches. The tree closest to the viewer is the tallest with the trees shrinking in size as they recede down the waterfront. Docked near the first tree, is a long, black and gray barge-like boat. It appears to be open topped and perhaps contains a figure. On the far right, the row of buildings also recedes like the trees. They vary is size and detail but all appear weathered in colors of a putty and gray with numerous windows and hints of blue shutters. At middle left, blue hills sit at distance while the vague shape of a larger ship appears to move along the river. The upper two thirds of the work is composed of a pale blue sky filled with cream clouds. Impressionistic brushwork is evident, showing several colors dabbed and blended together to create the shapes and details of the scene as well giving the work overall blue hue.]
Amanda Snyder
(American, 1894–1980)
The Forest in Autumn, ca. 1970
Oil on wood
Gift of Blount International, Inc., 2012.112.27
Inspired by her immediate surroundings, Snyder often chose representations of birds, flowers, landscapes, people, and interiors as her subjects. This is a less common and abstract representation where the colors of the season are not reflected in the leaves, but more through the density of the tree trunks. Painted in Snyder’s more typical muted palette of gray-blues, cool reds, and earthy yellows, the work has the sense of a greater landscape beyond the dense forest in the foreground.
Grace Kook-Anderson
[Artwork Description: This abstract painting is about three feet tall and over four feet wide. It depicts a series of slender vertical stripes of varying widths that fill the width of the work. Rusty browns, reds, purples, yellow, orange and deep dusty blue intermingle with dark narrower stripes of brown and black. The stripes vary in hues and are interspersed with irregularly spaced horizontal dashes. This combination suggests a close-up view of very narrow tree trunks, reminiscent of birch trees forming a solid mass. Viewed from a distance, a bold red stripe appears off center at left amid mainly bluish gray stripes. The narrow dark metal frame is almost invisible.]
Zhang Hongtu
(Chinese, active United States, born 1943)
After Shitao’s Landscape Album: Shitao—Van Gogh, from the series Ongoing Shan Shui, 2002
Oil on canvas
Gift of Judith B. Anderson, 2017.31.1
Zhang’s Ongoing Shan Shui series explores the categories of “East” and “West,” reflecting his own life lived in two cultures. Here, he reimagines an album leaf by the great seventeenth-century artist Shitao in the manner of Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. From the Chinese precedent—a small work in ink on paper—the bright colors and swirling brushwork of the Dutch artist transform the composition into something totally new.
Jeannie Kenmotsu
[Artwork Description: This large painting is four feet tall and three feet wide. It portrays a landscape with soaring cliffs, spiky distant mountains and a small body of water near a walled house. Tall gray green cliffs appear at right and left, flanking a small white house built with a low wall around it in the center. The cliffs on the left are so tall they disappear into overhead clouds. Two masses of green vegetation jut from the bottom edge and frame the house just off center. A small body of water also appears at the bottom edge. It is painted in blue and white which resembles sunlight bouncing off its surface. In front of the house outside the low wall, stands a tree almost bare of its leaves on a bit of golden-brown ground. The middle background is devoted to steep mountains in blues, greens, and creams. The upper half of the work is the sky across which roll billowy clouds in white, pale blue, and pink. The setting is the traditional Chinese countryside, but the style of painting is pure Van Gogh. Paint has been applied thickly and boldly using broad brushstrokes creating lush texture. Layers of paint are used to create color, shade and depth. Across the top of the painting is a band of Chinese characters along with chop marks in red. Two rows of characters appear at left, written vertically down the side of the work.]
Thomas Moran
(American, born England, 1837–1926)
The Grand Canal, Venice, 1899
Oil on canvas
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by Givens Bequest, 1999.1
Moran is a painter often recognized for his sweeping views of the American West. He also traveled to Italy to study art and visit significant sites for inspiration. Venice was one of his favorite places for this artistic retreat; he first went there in 1886. This historic city built on a lagoon has fascinated generations of artists, who are often drawn there by its unusual location and the challenge of capturing its shifting atmosphere in paint.
Sara Krajewski
[Artwork Description: This portrayal of Venice measures about two and a half feet wide and a little under two high. The upper two thirds of the painting is devoted to the sky. It is pale blue, almost periwinkle and filled with wispy, fibrous clouds that drift towards the right devolving into a hazy mist closer to the horizon line and the city buildings. At bottom left, a cluster of ships with tall masts and sails huddle near the shoreline. Their sails rise up into the sky bearing colorful flags flying from the top of masts. A boat in the foreground at left, appears to have run a ground and lists slightly. This boat has no mast but appears to be carrying several figures. Other boats in the background also carry figures, their sails in shadow and golden-orange sunlight. A stretch of smooth turquoise water bearing reflections of city buildings like the white domes at middle center, seems to glisten in the sun. The turquoise water comprises much of the lower third of the scene. At far lower right, a small raft or jagged wooden dock is tended to by a figure appearing to tie up to a piling. Other ships are portrayed in the distance, gliding over the reflective water near sun bleached buildings with domes, spires and colonnades.]
Hoshino Satoru
(Japanese, born 1945)
Spring Snow No. 12, 2007
Stoneware with white and copper blue glazes
Gift of a private donor, 2013.8.53
Hoshino describes his collaborative relationship with clay as a dialogue with nature. Inside and out, this vessel drips brilliant blue and sharp white pools of glaze from each finger-pressed hollow—like ice and water melting atop moss-covered rocks. The inspiration came during a hike with his wife Kayoko, also a ceramist, when they encountered a pristine field of snow melting below a clear blue sky.
Jeannie Kenmotsu
[Artwork Description: This sculpture stands a little under two feet high and measures just under a foot across at its widest. It has an irregular, conical shape that starts narrower at an unglazed base and widens, tier by tier, towards its top. Deep indentations the size of fingers cover its surface as the tiers spiral upwards. Deep mossy green glaze is combined with milky white glaze that drips the sculpture while pooling in the indentations. Its organic shape shifts, seemingly leaning, jutting and retracting depending on from which angle it is viewed.]
Akio Takamori
(Japanese and American, 1950–2017)
Twin Mountain, 2015
Stoneware with underglazing
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by Barbara Christy Wagner, 2016.41.1
Takamori has been known to create life-size human figures from his own imagination and memories. Though a departure from the human form, Twin Mountain is part of a body of work that looks at mountainscapes inspired by classical traditions such as Japanese ukiyo-e prints, meaning “pictures of the floating world.” Similar to Takamori’s tender and rounded human figures, these landscapes and clouds that sit above the mountaintop are captured in a three-dimensional space, scaled down to an embraceable proportion.
Grace Kook-Anderson
[Artwork Description: This small sculpture depicting mountains is about 20 inches high and a bit over a foot and a half wide. The two steeply peaked mountains are connected at their bases and are painted with a variety of hills in green, greenish gold, smokey blue, all outlined in brown. Portions of the sculpture are white, especially nestled in the area between the two mountains suggesting snow or mist. The peaks are topped with rounded clouds in off-white. The overall shape of the sculpture resembles two upside down ice cream cones with scoops of ice cream stuck on the pointed ends. The sculpture has an unglazed, matte finish and its shape undulates on all sides creating an irregular footprint.]
Expect the Unexpected
When visitors arrive at our doors, they often expect to see paintings and sculptures made using conventional materials like oil paints and marble. But isn’t it a delight to find that artists do not confine themselves to these expectations? How can an artist’s choice of materials alone unsettle how we perceive their work, and by extension, their subjects differently? In this section artists challenge us to see things differently, including using everyday materials or using conventional materials in innovative ways.
Wally Dion
(Yellow Quill First Nation/Salteaux and Canadian, born 1976)
Green Star Quilt, 2019
Circuit boards, brass wire, copper tube
Museum Purchase: Funds provided in memory of Brian Gross, 2020.1.1
The star pattern in this work is evocative of the quilting traditions of many Native communities in the United States and Canada, but it is constructed with repurposed computer circuit boards. Each piece is stitched together with wire instead of thread. The resulting sculptural work plays with our expectations: soft, comforting cloth has been replaced with rigid material and the surface is visually complex with a multitude of mechanical, sharp protrusions.
Kathleen Ash-Milby
[Artwork Description: A large, almost square work is composed of circuit boards in various shades of green pieced together like a quilt and connected with brass wire. It is about six feet hight by five and a half feet wide. At center, the circuit boards have been cut into diamond shapes and pieced to form an eight-pointed star. Further diamond shapes surround this star and radiate outward until they create a large star that almost fills the entire work. A thin gold line encompasses the large star forming a square. A border of more circuit boards completes the work. Many shades of green make up the different boards and they are heavily textured with silver and brass colored workings. Small silver balls in rows or patterns dominate the boards along with other metallic geometric shapes. Etched lines in patterns feature in most of the green boards.]
Claes Oldenburg
(American, born Sweden 1929, active United States)
Alphabet in the Form of a Good Humor Bar, 1970
Color lithograph on paper
Gift of Mr. Ronald Shindler and Mr. Lowell Shindler, 81.107.2
Oldenburg humorously transforms familiar things through shifts in scale and media. In this work, the fleshy letters that form a melting ice cream bar recall his soft canvas sculptures from the previous decade. The artist notes that “swollen letters signify the affluence that advertises a good store”; his witty melding of language and food points to the importance of language in the marketing of consumer foodstuffs.
Mary Weaver Chapin
[Artwork Description: This lithographic depicts the familiar ice cream treat on a wooden stick. In this case, the ice cream is composed of swollen letters of the alphabet in shades of pale taupe-pinks. The upper left corner of the bar has a bite taken out of it and shows us the vanilla white ice cream inside the pinkish coating. The letter A is shown melting slightly as the vanilla white ice cream within the pop as it drips. The alphabet continues, the letters, squeezed and stuffed in to form the pop. The treat sits on a white ground with the artist’s signature at lower right and print number at lower right.]
Analia Saban
(Argentine American, born 1980)
GRACIAS GRACIAS GRACIAS THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Have a Nice Day Plastic Bag, 2016
Mixografia ® print on handmade paper
Museum Purchase: Funds Provided by the Graphic Arts Council, 2023.26.1
In 2016, Saban produced a series of sculptural prints in the shape of plastic bags. These trompe l’oeil objects are, in fact, formed from handmade paper.
The subject of the artist’s work can be interrogated as part of the consumerism of contemporary America, in terms of environmental sustainability, or enjoyed as playful prints that monumentalize ordinary objects. Their cheery platitudes of gratitude remind us of the social niceties that facilitate daily life in a fast-paced and often anonymous city setting.
Mary Weaver Chapin
[Artwork Description: This print depicts a two handled plastic bag commonly used at stores. The paper takes on the shape of a wrinkled, well used plastic shopping bag, rising off the rough-edged paper creating a three-dimensional work. The white bag has a large yellow smiley face emblem: A yellow circle with black and white oval eyes with a broad smile made from a single line. The face is also outlined in black. Text below the face reads “Have a nice day” and follows the curve of the face. Directly beneath that it reads: “Thank you”. Smaller text in black below that reads: “Please recycle this bag”. Even smaller appears below that and includes safety warnings, recycling, and trademark emblems. The print has considerable volume and resembles plastic more than the paper it is printed with.]
Sean Healy
(American, born 1971)
Egghead, 2006
Resin cast chewing gum on wood table
Gift of the artist and Elizabeth Leach Gallery in honor of Glenda Goldwater, 2015.70.1a,b
Healy explores social power structures using such disparate materials as chewing gum, resin, cigarette butts, and sliding glass doors. His process-oriented installation work is influenced by pop culture and the urban environment. Egghead is made from a repurposed school library table. The bottom of the table has permanently placed anchors that hold the “cameo,” a portrait of Melville Dewey, inventor of the decimal system used to classify books and other publications. The portrait, constructed from over fifty pieces of gum chewed by Healy and his son, is stuck under the table in a nod to youthful defiance.
Grace Kook-Anderson
[Artwork Description: This work is a long, wooden table turned on its end leaning against the wall. It stands about six and a half feet tall, about three and a half feet wide and two feet deep. It’s a medium golden wood color with simple, straight square legs with single side stretcher at each shorter end. Positioned on the underside of the table just above the halfway mark, is an oval cameo with a bearded man’s likeness. The image is made of chewed gum in different colors. The background is white chewing gum, the man’s hair, sideburns, mustache, beard and eyes are a rusty red gum while the face is several shades of peachy pink gum. Dark gray gum represents a jacket and white gum forms a bow tie or collar.]
Vik Muniz
(Brazilian, born 1961)
Rouen Cathedral (Les Classiques de l’Art, Flammarion) p. PL.LII–LIII—Le Cathédrale de Rouen, Le Portail et La Tour d’ Albane (Effet du Matin), Repro, 2016
Chromogenic print
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by the Contemporary Collectors Circle, 2016.86.1
To his surprise, Muniz discovered that across five different books the same exact painting of the Rouen Cathedral by Claude Monet appeared wildly different: black-and-white in one, too purple in another, and so on. Wondering about the veracity of reproductions, Muniz set about to make his own version of the painting. On the surface, his photograph seems filled with impressionist brushstrokes in honor of Monet’s style. Lean in closely to discover the many images cut from magazines, catalogs, and art books that animate the surface.
Sara Krajewski
[Artwork Description: This image of the Rouen Cathedral facade and Albane Tower is six feet tall and four feet wide. Small pieces of ephemera are collaged together to create the Cathedral’s facade, rose window, the oversized portal and the even taller tower next to it. When viewed from a distance the collage pieces create a soft, hazy view of the landmarks in blues, purples and beige. Up close, hundreds of tiny pieces of ephemera reveal themselves to contain a variety of subject matter. Among those depicted are faces, legs, arms, hands, torsos, doves, rabbits, horses, fruits, saints, popes, nudes and birds. These are portrayed in an array of ways including drawings, etchings, photographs. Using the varying hues and shades of the ephemera, an impression of the famous cathedral and tower are created. It has a simple black frame.]
Dinh Q. Lê
(American, born Vietnam, 1968)
Buddhas at Angkor Temple, 1996
Woven chromogenic prints and linen tape on board
The Carol and Seymour Haber Collection, 2018.51.1
Lê’s woven photographs explore the complexities of war, borders, remembrance, and representation. The artist was a child when his family was displaced by war between Vietnam and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge regime. This weaving juxtaposes relief carvings at Angkor Wat with the portrait of a prisoner held at a Khmer Rouge facility. Physically plaiting together the two images, Lê symbolically joins the Buddhist figures and prisoner, but blurs the images of both—neither can be seen clearly, but are held forever in a state of suspended dissolution.
Jeannie Kenmotsu
[Artwork Description: Woven chromogenic print that is taped to a board. The work is 45 inches tall by 30 inches wide. Multiple images are imposed over each other with a face somewhat visible in the top third. The background is composed of brown sandstone like carvings. The background along the bottom has rust colored splotches and 90 appears in black numbers on gray background in the lower third. White rectangles are cut out in repeating geometric patterns where there is a blank space in the middle revealing the background with two white rectangles above and two to the side. This pattern repeats every few inches. The middle of the painting along the figure’s face has smaller squares cut out in a varying patterns. They reveal varying shades of gray. The lower third has more of the squares cut out revealing black behind them. The image with the cut away shapes gives the impression of a magic eye poster with a slightly dizzying effect. The print is framed in a shadow box with a white border and light wood frame.]
Shan Goshorn
(Cherokee Nation and American, 1957–2018)
Oklahoma Indians, 2015; Unhinged, 2015; Moise, 2015
Paper basket, Arches watercolor paper, pigment printer ink, acrylic
Gift of Charles Froelick, 2021.1.1-3
These baskets represent Goshorn’s work at the height of her career, when she began using the basketry format, especially the rare Cherokee double-weave technique. They incorporate reproductions of historical portraits and important documents. Moise is part of a series based on the artist’s archival research, including studio portraits by Frank Rinehart, taken at the 1898 Indian Congress in Omaha, Nebraska, including Salish (Flathead) delegate Chief Antoine Moise (ca. 1850–1918). Goshorn described these as “unique in that they are a ‘non-exotifying’ collection, simply recording the participants as they were without the glamor of special backgrounds or added props.” The interior adds the translated text of a Cherokee memorial song, including the words, “We remember your sacrifices. You will not be forgotten.” The words and images honor her ancestors, both as individuals and carriers of tradition.
Kathleen Ash-Milby
[Artwork Description: The three baskets are displayed on a waist-high pedestal in a cube-shaped acrylic case about 22” wide and high. On the left side is the “Oklahoma Indians” basket, measuring 9” high by 4” wide by 2” front to back. The base forms a rectangle while the top is an oval shape. The vertical midsection displays a colorized photo about 5” in height of a group of Indians, some sitting and some standing behind them, printed on paper, cut into strips, and woven into the basket. Lighter colored strips compose the upper and lower exterior portions and have wording printed on them in delicate hand-cursive text. The interior of the basket shows a woven pattern of tan, green and black strips.
In front of and to the right of the first basket is a second, smaller one about 4” high and 3” square at the bottom. The top of the”Moise” basket forms a circle and the inside is bright turquoise in color. On the front is a gray-toned photographic portrait of a Chief Moise that has been similarly printed, cut, and woven into the basket design.
In the right rear corner of the case, the “Unhinged” basket sits on a 6” high pedestal. The basket is about 4″ square at the bottom with rounded corners at the top and about 3” high. It is light brown in color with hand-written script printed on both the horizontal and vertical strips. The center of each side of the basket includes eight light blue-toned strips with black font lettering printed on them.
Each of the three items has a final strip around the exterior at the top which is attached to the basket with whip-stitching.]
Rudolf Stingel
(Italian, born 1956)
Untitled, 1998
Aluminum
Gift of a private donor, 2013.8.168
Stingel has been called “one of the greatest anti-painting painters.” Say what? Over his career, he has been a controversial figure whose “paintings” have consisted of strange materials like orange carpet or Styrofoam panels covered in Mylar. He jabs at the belief that painting is a rarefied pursuit with great intrinsic value. He made this work from a Styrofoam block, cast in aluminum to preserve the gouges that take the place of brushstrokes.
Sara Krajewski
[Artwork Description: Aluminum painting 29 ½ inches tall by 23 ½ inches wide. This monotone gray painting could also be categorized as a sculpture. The thick textured strokes jut out at different lengths forming jagged ledges. They are positioned at different angles and depths. The work has a natural essence of wind and water battered stone or disturbed freshly poured concrete. Each broader stroke is comprised of several tiny vertical lines and layers of sand like clumps. The work is light from above, casting shadows under the longer ledges. It is anchored to the gray wall with two small metal metal brackets, one at top and one at bottom.]
John Livingston
(Canadian and adopted Kwakwaka’wakw, born 1951)
Queen and Maple Leaf Copper, 2013
Canadian copper pennies and steel
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by Barbara Christy Wagner, 2013.101.3
Livingston’s sculptural work riffs on the shape of the “copper,” created with the rare and valuable material in the shape of a shield as a demonstration of wealth by Pacific Northwest coastal tribes such as the Tlingit and Kwakwaka’wakw. The artist has used the least valuable form of currency in contemporary Canadian society, the copper penny, as a critique of colonial culture’s values.
Kathleen Ash-Milby
[Artwork Description: Composed of 1000+ Canadian copper pennies which have been soldered together as a mostly flat surface, the shield is approximately 30” tall and 18” wide. The pennies are arranged with each row offset to fit between the ones above it, creating a “pennny-tile” pattern. The upper half widens to the shoulder area at the top and gently bulges out in the chest area about an inch or so from the background. Midway down is a raised horizontal ridge in an inverted V shape the height of two pennies that would seem to represent a belt, as well as a vertical ridge of the same height dissecting the lower portion from the belt to the bottom. The shield is displayed on a flat panel that leans to the back in an acrylic case on a waist-high pedestal.]
Sara Cwynar
(American, born 1985)
Encyclopedia Grid (Acropolis), 2014
Chromogenic print mounted on Plexiglas
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by Contemporary Art Auction Proceeds, 2017.77.1
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I was feeling nostalgia for traveling. Remember when travel was strongly discouraged, or even impossible? The way that Cwynar puts a finger on each picture of the Acropolis, touching the place but yet not at that place, moved me to think about how we carry memories in the photos, postcards, and ephemera we gather on our trips; or, if we can’t go, what we look at as we dream of getaways.
Sara Krajewski
[Artwork Description: A vertical print is three feet high and about two feet wide. It shows 51 postcard size images of the Acropolis arranged on a blue ground. The images are different sizes, both in color and black and white and mostly in landscape format. Each also contains the image of a finger or two as if they are holding the picture. They are arranged in five vertical rows with the last row at right having an additional two images in portrait format. One of these images is the only one that does not show the Acropolis. Instead, it shows a black and white photo of palm fronds and a banana bunch with a fingertip in color. It’s framed in a plain narrow black frame.]
Benjamin Buswell
(American, born 1974)
Horizon Mother, 2015
Dye coupler print
Gift of Meagan Atiyeh, Jane Beebe, Eric and Robin Busch, Marc Castelnuovo Tedesco, Wid Chambers, Tess Durham, Beth Gates and Geoff Dorn, Cynthia Kirk, Christine Laptuta and Stefan Bukojemsky, Charles and Ursula Le Guin, Todd Putnam, Steve Putnam, Steve Rizzo, Prudence Roberts, Blake Shell, Jeffrey Thomas, Kevin Wei, 2015.156.1a,b
Buswell treats photographs as sculpture, hand-manipulating prints with careful scoring that reveals the strata beneath the surface. Horizon Mother is composed of photographs of human skin and water surfaces. The artist is fascinated by the concept of skin, which covers, protects, or hides what lies beneath. The cuts in the prints create physical and metaphorical links between the binary structures such as above and below, hidden and revealed.
Julia Dolan
[Artwork Description: Large rectangular photo sculpture consisting of two white framed squares that are hung touching in the middle. The background has two large black rectangles that come from the top down and bottom up, meeting in the middle. Smaller orange triangles face inward, points meeting in the center. Strips of the photo paper have been cut away about every half inch and cascade down the middle like a waterfall of black, gray, brown, and white ribbon, curling slightly at the ends. This leaves quarter inch tall stripes of the photos visible between the white cutaway stripes. Barely perceptible shapes and lines peek through the stripes. On the left, white and yellow splotches, some resembling bubbles, other fire, are seen over the black, orange, and burgundy background. Those on the right are more subtle, but a small lemon shaped circle of darker burgundy and black rises just above the center line. To the right is a patch of darker shadow like images with a gently curved line running vertically from the top to the right edge. There are a few places where the cut away strips are thicker or thinner than the others or where multiple strips have pulled away together.]
Gianmaria Buccellati
(Italian, 1929–2015)
Boar, last half of 20th century
Sterling silver
The Carol and Seymour Haber Collection, 2008.82
[Artwork Description: [Image Description: The sculpture is approximately 12” in height and depicts a boar lying in a bed of silver oak leaves and acorns with its head lifted, eyes and snout pointed to the sky. The snout, tusk-like teeth, and hooves are all smoothly polished silver, with the rest of its body covered in realistic fine metallic strands of silver. The largish ears point horizontally towards its back, with smooth but gently-scored texture on the inside of each ear. Details on its skin is depicted through thousands of extremely fine strands of silver, with more coarse strands along the ridge of the back and below the jawlines. The boar’s mouth is in a closed position and its eyes are fixed in an upward gaze, suggesting a moment of contemplation. The sculpture is displayed in an acrylic cube about 30” wide mounted on a pedestal approximately 34” in height.]
Yanagihara Mutsuo
(Japanese, born 1934)
Mandolin, 1966
Stoneware with brown and yellow glaze
Museum Purchase: Caroline Ladd Pratt Fund, 68.23
Yanagihara probably created this work while he was teaching ceramics at Washington State University in the late 1960s. Around this time he considered abandoning ceramics for sculpture. Instead he developed a sculptural form of ceramics, producing boldly shaped and brightly colored functional and non-functional works. His ceramics are playful and humorous, often with a touch of anatomical suggestion and the funky personality of the West Coast ceramics scene he participated in as a young artist before returning to Japan.
Jeannie Kenmotsu
[Artwork Description: Stoneware sculpture shaped like a mandolin. From the side, the neck of the mandolin resembles a leg with a bent knee. The curves are fluid, but the texture is rough. The base opens into a large concave circle. Three yellow quarter inch thick lines run from the top to the bottom. A warm brown rust color covers the whole sculpture with distressed areas of darker brown and yellow sporadically around the front. The sides and back are much lighter with a tan yellow color emerging from beneath the rust color which seems to have worn off. There are bumps, lines, and pits throughout giving a rich texture. The glaze on the back shines brightly reflecting the track light above. The top edge has multiple dips with a thick coating of glaze. The sculpture is about 23 inches tall, 4 inches wide at the top, and 9 inches wide at the base. It is sitting on a white pedestal with glass around it. It is held up by two thin white metal supports on the back.]
Kondō Takahiro
(Japanese, born 1958)
Wave, 2022
Marbleized porcelain with “silver mist” overglaze and cast glass
Museum Purchase: Margery Hoffman Smith Fund, 2023.18.1a,b
From a distance, Kondō’s slab-built vessels mimic the fluidity of an ink painting, with marbleized layers of different colored clays swirling together. On closer inspection, the surface gleams with an extraordinary, incandescent metallic glaze, or what the artist calls “silver mist.” Composed of silver, gold, and platinum, once heated, the metals form spheres that shimmer like water droplets. Kondō’s work explores not merely the possibilities of clay, but “the concept of water emerging from fire.”
Jeannie Kenmotsu
[Artwork Description: Large, angular porcelain sculpture that stands about 27 inches tall, with three 6 ½ inch wide sides. The top has a one inch tall shiny black protrusion that has marbleized silver throughout. The main portion has a cream base layer with marbleized black and gray lines and swirls that resemble smoke. On the surface are thousands of silver balls that resemble tiny shimmering bubbles. The bubbles continue around the sharp edges connecting the surface of each side. The sculpture is secured with two small white brackets that connect to the white pedestal and the sculpture is enclosed in a glass case.]
Sonya Clark
(American, born 1967)
Penny Loafers, 2010
Copper and pennies
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by Barbara Christy Wagner, 2017.76.1a,b
Shoes evoke movement, protection, style, and—for these penny loafers—the weight of history. By choosing hundreds of pennies to create this pair, Clark uses the presidential likeness on the coin to reflect on the actions and legacy of Abraham Lincoln. Some moments in Lincoln’s presidency brought celebration, others devastation. With this in mind, the lighthearted pun on a penny loafer gives way to deeper considerations of value and burden.
Sara Krajewski
[Artwork Description: [Image Description: Two pairs of loafers with the sides and tops made of about one hundred pennies and a solid copper sole with a slightly raised heal. A solid copper saddle across the top with a small slot where a penny would normally go. The shoes are about a foot long and just over an inch and a half tall. They are on a white pedestal covered with a glass case.]
Color
Whether painted, printed, glazed, sculpted, or woven, color plays a fundamental role in art across media and cultures. In this gallery, we explore the power of color to evoke mood, narrative, and illusion. The juxtaposition of complementary colors or the gradual transition of shades can add dimension and perspective to a two-dimensional surface. Color impacts how we experience a work of art: hot colors like red, orange, and yellow are stimulating, while cool tones like blue and green can be soothing. How does it feel when colors clash or are used in unconventional ways? Can we perceive colors with senses other than sight?
Severin Roesen
(German, active United States, ca. 1815–ca. 1872)
Still Life of Flowers and Fruit, 1870–1872
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mary and Pete Mark, 2005.20
In this lush still life, Roesen uses a rich variety of colorful flowers and fruits to suggest the abundance of nature: peonies, morning glories, lilies, primula, and iris are arranged in a glass bowl. The muted brown background and white marble edge let color take center stage.
Mary Weaver Chapin
[Artwork Description: This oil painting is about 49” tall by 38” wide. It is a vibrantly colored still life, framed by an ornate gold frame that protrudes out from the wall by about 4 ½”. It has ornate etchings of repeated patterns. The background is brown with the left side being slightly darker than the right. A white marble table with gray veins extends from the right side of the painting. A large blue wide vase sits in the middle holding a large bouquet of brightly colored flowers. The top left in the back is a stem of red flowers. Six fully opened blossoms hang from the green stem with thin yellow lines extending from the center. Fifteen unopened buds of various sizes surround the blossoms. Below multiple stems of much larger white lilies blossoms. The top three are partially open and the middle two are fully open. Two partially open blossoms duck beneath the front blooms. A single drop of water rests on the front lily. To the left, reddish orange bleeding hearts jut up then cascade down. The sparsely budded branch is more muted in color. Below it thin stalks of small blue flowers extend to the left. To the right, tulips of variegated pink and white and yellow and red frame the clump of lilies. Below is a variegated pink tulip with a small pink rosebud next to it. Below this are two closed white buds that resemble peony buds. To the left a small flat purple flower with a white center extends past the green leaves. Under it is a large fully open blossom with pale pink and lavender petals and a lavender center. Two white blossoms bloom to the right with several layers of petals. The larger one in front has a single water drop on the front petal. Behind is a variegated pink tulip, fully open with some of the petals on the left curling. Below is a green leaf pointing downward with a tiny ladybug at the tip. At the bottom of the vase are four pink primrose-like blossoms with leaves between them next to flat, round, purple morning glory flowers with white star centers. Behind them is a small pansy with a purple top and yellow bottom. Next to it a thin stalk extends downward towards the table with three long thin red flowers. At the rim of the vase are two yellow blossoms with multiple layers of teardrop shaped petals and a green center. A thin green stalk hangs downward to the right with four white unopened oval buds and a larger opened white flower shaped like a lily at the bottom. Above it, a cluster of about eleven small flat round red flowers with orange centers and an orange edge. To the left is a full deep pink rose blossom. Above this is a smaller, partially opened pink rosebud surrounded by several green leaves. To the left are three short stalks of tiny white bell shaped flowers. To their right is a large purple iris with a white center. Above it is a tall, thick stock of heavy pink flowers with multiple layers of ruffled petals. The bottom three are fully open, one facing backwards, one on the left partially open, and the rest still closed buds. To the right is a large white calla lily stretching out to the right. To the right are full green leaves and multiple talks of smaller flowers that appear in the shadows. The table is filled with fruit including pears on the left, a basket of cherries that is laying on its side, a cluster of green grapes that hang over the front of the table, a twig with six partially open pink roses. Behind this is a round metal basket full of strawberries. Big green leaves flow over the basket and a yellow apple lays on the table to the right. The artist’s signature is barely visible on the front edge of the table.]
David Maisel
(American, born 1961)
Lake Project, #9823 4, 2002
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum
The Blue Sky Gallery Collection; Gift of James and Susan Winkler, 2004.96.13
[Artwork Description: This large photograph is two and half feet square. A dark, blood red streak begins at top left and travels towards the center of the photo then dips downward, swerving sharply to the left. It thickens before running off the left edge. A thin tendril of red breaks off at the center of this streak and trails off towards the upper portion of the photo. The deep warm red contrasts with the icy blues and pale purples that it is set against. At right, large chucks of cool white and gray make irregular shapes that resemble icy patches. Large and small chunks cluster from the top of the photo to the bottom edge. They have the appearance of land masses on a map. At upper left, a darker stripe of deep purple encloses the corner that holds fragments of two geometric shapes. The overall impression of the work is one of a landscape as seen from far above the earth.]
Théo van Rysselberghe
(Belgian, 1862–1926)
Beach at Low Tide, Ambleteuse, Evening, 1900
Oil on canvas
Gift of Laura and Roger Meier, 2011.142
Van Rysselberghe was fascinated by color theory, and especially as developed by Neo-Impressionist artist Georges Seurat in the 1880s. Called “pointillism,” this style employs small dots of color to build up the composition; when viewed from a distance, the individual dots blend together to create a luminous surface. In this view of the seaside in northern France, vividly colored dots form a vibrant sky, blending to the smooth surface of the bay, while the colorful sunset reflects on the estuary curving through the wet sands.
Mary Weaver Chapin
[Artwork Description: This sherbet colored painting is nearly square, measuring two feet wide by a little less than two feet tall. Small dabs of pastel candy colors are combined to create a sky and shoreline at what may be dawn or dusk. The painting is divided in half horizontally with upper portion depicting a sky strewn with segmented clouds that slant across the canvas from lower left to upper right. The clouds closer to the viewer appear as deep lavender ringed with peach and pale orange. Clouds in the distance are yellow and cream against the pale blue sky. A wide strip of sea in purple, blue and cream reflects some of the colors in the sky. The lower portion of the work portrays a shoreline in blue, green and pink. Pale cream, yellow and pink streams of water snake their way to the ocean. The streams break off, divide and wind their way across much of the beach. At left, a portion of the beach appears darker in deep blues and greens with pops of purple, suggesting a different terrain such as a rocky patch. The work is contained in an ornate gold gilt frame.]
Raymond Jonson
(American, 1891–1982)
City Perspectives, 1932
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mr. Arthur H. Johnson, 78.17
Jonson was part of the Transcendental Painting Group, an artist collective based in New Mexico in the 1930s. According to their manifesto, they desired “to carry painting beyond the appearance of the physical world, through new concepts of space, color, light and design to imaginative realms that are idealistic and spiritual.” Instead of depicting a realistic cityscape, Jonson uses primary colors and diagonal lines to capture radiating energy.
Sara Krajewski
[Artwork Description: This painting measures 47 3/4″ tall by 37 3/4″ wide. It has multiple horizon lines and a variety of muted colors. The focal point is a large rose colored rectangular tower in the middle of the painting. A few inches from the top of the tower is a tan circle with a pink outline. A horizontal line cuts through the center of the circle and extends upward. It is a light gray layer that shows the designs behind in muted color. Two vertical stripes extend downward starting at the center point of the pink border around the circle. They extend to the ground. Two leaf shaped layers create a shadow like effect, their points just beyond the circle. At the base of the rose rectangular tower are two cone shape structures with pipes pushed into the top causing them to sink with a ripple around the base of the pipe. The one in back is a pastel green and the one in the front a deep rose. Both appear to have steam coming out the top of the pipes in a straight vertical line. To the right is a horizontal cone, facing to the right, that is rose colored with an orange tint with lighter pigment in a line across the center. The base extends to the left to near the edge of the painting. To the left of the cones a trail of bubbly steam floats to the left and then rises upward. Below the steam bubbles is a horizontal line comprised of five cone cylinder shaped dashes on top of a deep burgundy triangle. In front of the rose cone is a flat black square with a border. Two small pipes extend up from the back edge of the square with curved lines extending up and around the rose cone and disappearing behind bubbles of steam. The black square has a deep burgundy border to the back and right. To the right is an army green cone shape that is horizontal and has a more rounded top. Large transparent steam bubbles overlap as they extend up and to the right. The rose colored square at the bottom of the painting extends to the center point, creating a horizon line to the right. Three cream color sky-rise buildings extend upward from below the burgundy line. The first has a small portion visible before it continues out of frame. To the left is a square column with a spike on top. It has a thinner portion on the far side that is partially visible. The last and largest tower has two vertical lines of square windows extending the length of the canvas. The building has two vertical edges on the front to the right of the windows. A fourth building extends from the burgundy horizontal cone on the bottom upwards at an angle, some of the building extending past the canvas. There are two vertical rows of windows on the right and a single row on the left extends downward where the right lines stop. To the right of the lower windows are three pipe stacks that have one pipe below, another above, and then have thinner curved pipes extending form the top and reaching to the right, disappearing behind the main large burgundy rectangular tower. To the left of the far left building is another set of six white cylinders that appear as dashes in a line. A variety of translucent white shapes appear behind the other shapes on this painting creating illusions of lighted shadows and slightly altering the colors they are over. A few cloud like shapes appear between the buildings on the right.]
Amy Adler
(American, born 1966)
I Am a Rainbow (Orange), 2002
Silver dye print (Cibachrome)
Gift of the McCusker Family, 2022.53.1
[Artwork Description: This silver dye print is 47 1/2″ tall by 68″ wide. It is set in a simple white frame. The whole print is various shades of orange. A nude woman with straight shoulder length hair lays on her stomach on the couch. A checkered blanket with fringe on the edges is laid over the back and seat of the couch made up of light orange squares and dark, almost red squares. Her hands are clasped in front of her chest, obscuring her breasts. She looks straight at the viewer with an intense gaze. Her jaws are set, lips closed, brows furrowed. Her hair is parted in the middle and cascades down her face and over her shoulders like strands of yarn. Her head obscures her back, but her round smooth buttocks are visible and her legs are bent at the knees. Her feet are crossed resting against the back of the couch. The background behind the couch is formed of overlapping orange hashmarks. The print’s highlights suggest a bright light source just out of view in front of the woman.]
Ed Paschke
(American, 1939–2004)
Creato, 1986
Oil on linen
Gift of the McCusker Family, 2022.53.18
The brash colors and cropped figures in Paschke’s paintings appear like distorted images on an old-fashioned television screen. Late twentieth-century TV shows, film, comics, advertising, and magazine photography inspired his surreal imagery. Paschke often titled his works suggestively, sometimes in languages other than English. “Creato” in Italian can refer to “The Creator.” The huge face and intense gaze suggest a powerful, all-seeing figure.
Sara Krajewski
[Artwork Description: This oil painting is 50 1/16″ tall and 89 1/16″ wide. It is brightly colored with somewhat of an ominous presence. A large neon green head fills the canvas from top to bottom. The face has a blue and black beard, black eyebrows, and black circles around the eyes. A large nose protrudes between the yellow slits with diagonal orange stripes that are the eyes. Flat red ears shaped like elf ears extend on both sides. The background is a bright red. Thin horizontal lines of blue, green, black, green, and red cover the canvas in random areas suggesting a video glitch effect. Lighter blue lines outline the figure’s eyes, and mouth. Shorter vertical blue and red lines fill the space above the figures lip. Words written in cursive start on the edge of the canvas with the end of the words out of view. The background fades from reddish orange to yellow about halfway up the figure’s ears.]
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
(Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation and American, born 1940)
The Eye of the Storm, 2015
Oil and acrylic on canvas
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by Elizabeth Cole Butler, by exchange, 2015.166.1
The soft, gentle colors in this painting are a stark contrast to its difficult subject matter: climate change swirling out of control. An ancient cougar figure with a stern expression on the right and a skeleton falling from the sky indicate that we cannot sugarcoat our predicament or gloss over the consequences of decades of polluting our environment.
Kathleen Ash-Milby
[Artwork Description: This painting is five feet tall and a bit over three feet wide. It shows two figures near a cluster of spirals. A humanoid figure is positioned upside down, legs and feet at lower center, arms and head towards to bottom edge of the painting. The figure has clearly defined ribs that extend over the entire torso and a wide mouth showing teeth, large blank eyes and triangular nose. The effect gives the figure the appearance of a skeleton. To the right of this figure is another individual who sits kneeling, arms extended straight with hands on their lap, facing to the right. They appear to be nude. The head is that of an animal with small upright ears and a short snout. The figures are rendered in black outline filled in with multiple colors. Cream, rust, light blue, yellow, brown and orange are applied loosely. Paint drips and is blended and layered over the figures. The top third of this painting is dominated by the cluster of spirals. The spirals vary in size and color and are layered over one another. The most prominent spirals are the four, light blue ones at top left and one orange at center close to the top of the painting. The spiral shapes beneath are rendered in muted shades of blue, gray, rust, pale yellow, orange, light blue, peach, cream and black. The paint has been applied boldly and unevenly with brushstrokes visible with some colors blending into others and drips from paint running down. The spiral shapes are flanked by wide, curved swaths of cream paint on either side. Along the bottom of the work running from left to right is a narrow strip of green. Above this at bottom left is a small gloved open hand with its palm up. Next to this is a bird-like creature. Its wings are held above its body with individual feathers depicted. It has a long neck and a flat triangle head with two dots for eyes. Two straight lines serve as its legs. Paint drips with colors bleeding blending together are especially evident in the lower portion of the work.]
Tim Bavington
(American, born England, born 1966)
Voodoo Child, Slight Return (solo), 2002
Acrylic on canvas
Gift of the Contemporary Art Council, 2002.12
Synesthesia is the experience of one sense stimulating another: feeling sounds, tasting shapes, or hearing colors. Bavington explores this phenomenon with his intensely colorful paintings. He developed a system that keys color to notes on the musical scale and creates visual scores for rock ’n’ roll songs. Here, the artist pictures the pitch, timbre, tone, and tempo of Jimi Hendrix’s unforgettable guitar solo in “Voodoo Child.”
Sara Krajewski
[Artwork Description: This painting is six feet wide and four and a half feet tall and is composed of vertical stripes of varying widths. There are generally three main areas of concentrated color. They are yellow, red and green. Starting at the left the piece begins with narrow yellow stripes in different strengths, some deeper, some paler. Interspersed with the yellow are pink and pale orange stripes. A few wider stripes of sky blue appear and mix with grass green, hot pink, red and darker neutral colors. A section of pale lavender, pink and sky blue separates the yellow are from the red area. Red and yellow stripes alternate until they are joined by darker neutrals, pale blue, green, magenta. Here at the center of the work, red becomes the dominate color. Slim stripes yellow, orange and lavender join the red until several stripes of blue appear. Pink, blue and dark wide bands of neutrals alternate until shades of grass green begin to dominate. Narrow stripes of navy, brown, red and orange are added to the mix. The stripes end on a yellow that fades to white unpainted paper. The work is matted in white with a simple black frame.]
Miyashita Zenji
(Japanese, 1939–2012)
Facing the Light, 2012
Stoneware with bands of colored clay
Lent by Carol and Jeffrey Horvitz, L2022.43.5
Miyashita perfected the traditional Japanese ceramic technique of saidei, applying thin layers of differently colored clays to create gradations. Simultaneously minimal in its gentle swelling from pale pinks to deep purple, this diamond-shaped vessel is nevertheless dramatic, like an unfolding landscape or the slow crescendo of light at dawn. The artist completed this work in the final year of his life.
Jeannie Kenmotsu
[Artwork Description: This hand-constructed ceramic piece is displayed on a waist-high pedestal with an acrylic cover about 34 inches wide and 24 inches high. The piece is approximately 15 inches, at its highest point, around 24 inches in width and about 6 inches front to back at its thickest point. From above, the shape is an elongated horizontal diamond with the widest point at about two thirds of the left to right distance. At the intersection of the diamond’s axis is a circular hole about 1 ½ inches in diameter. The top of the piece forms a ridge with sides that angle down about three inches from either side of the circular opening and meet at the left and right corners. There are two rectangular vertical sections on the front and back surfaces about 12 inches high. The left section width is about two thirds of the side and the right is about one third. Each rectangular section angles up about one inch from the base at the ends with the flat angular surfaces receding slightly from the lower edges. The surfaces of the piece appear to be smooth from a distance, but closer observation reveals over twenty layers of very thinly flattened clay about the thickness of an index card. These are applied from left to right in a vertical position with the left edges forming gentle organic curves. Just as subtle as the gradual layering of the piece, the gradation of colors, begin with a medium rosy-pink at the left end, softening as it moves towards the right to the lighter pinks which transition to light purples and finally to a darkish purple at the far right. The coloring was mixed into each layer of clay before it was applied.]
Betty Woodman
(American, 1930–2018)
Untitled (in shape of urn), date unknown
Glazed ceramic
The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, a joint initiative of the Trustees of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and the National Gallery of Art, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute for Museum and Library Services, 2009.64.49
Woodman brought ceramics, painting, and sculpture together with a sense of playfulness. Her witty works flip our view of functional craft upside down. Here, she flattens an urn into two dimensions; instead of glazing it with specific colors, she describes the colors with words instead.
Sara Krajewski
[Artwork Description: This flat ceramic urn is about 17 1/8″ tall and 11″ wide. It is a tan clay color. Several other colors are hand written on the surface in the corresponding colored paint. The main portion is vase shaped with two curved handles extending from the top to the sides, connecting where the urn widens in the middle. The handles are slightly ruffled and twisted. The left handle has the word vanadium written in a brownish yellow hue. Indecipherable words are written in purple at the top of the urn – possibly spelling the word lilac. Very light purple letters on the right handle are difficult to read, but may spell lavender. Below them is the word olive in olive colored paint. The word naple appears in yellow just below the top of the urn. Below is the word golden in rust colored paint. Next is a diagonal word in light yellow that appears to spell pantimony. Bellow are yellow letters spelling praseo. At the bottom in dark brown is the word hazel. At the top of the urn a small lavender colored tube juts out from the ceramic and connects to a part above with a fracture line between. A small yellow tube juts out of a hole at the bottom of the urn. There are several dents, chips, ripples in the clay.]
Plateau region, artists unknown
Beaded flat bags, ca. 1940–50
Beads, hide, cotton cloth, cotton thread
Bequest of Arlene and Harold Schnitzer, 2022.35.2 and 2022.35.6
These beaded flat bags are part of a larger tradition among tribes in the Columbia Plateau region, created for use within the community and for sale to outsiders. These are in a less common heart shape and each features a woman’s portrait. One woman wears hair and makeup in keeping with the midcentury era in which the bags were made, while the other is dressed in tribal finery suitable for a parade, in which she might carry one or more of these bags while on horseback.
Kathleen Ash-Milby
[Artwork Description: Two heart-shaped beaded bags displayed in a white shadowbox. The first piece is in the shape of a heart with a wide handle on top. The piece is about 10 9/16″ x 10 3/8″ x 5/8″. It has a bright yellow background and features a Native woman with long braids in the middle. Her long black hair is parted in the middle and two braids hang down her chest. Two feathers, white on the bottom and black on the top stick out from behind her head. She wears a white headband with four upside down red triangles. She wears large white round earrings and two strand necklace with sections of white and black beads. She wears a white dress with a red collar line. It has a green diamond outlined in blue just below the neckline. Across the chest are three patterns that loosely resemble fir trees. A green triangle on bottom with red horizontal triangles on the sides with a blue outline around it all. She wears a blue belt that has four sideways red triangles. The heart is outlined in a pattern of white and blue beads that appear twisted as they surround the heart. Inside of this is a layer of orange beads with several blue triangles. The handle is yellow with two red triangles stacked on top of each other near the top of the heart and a large black rectangle with four smaller squares on each corner.
The second piece is another beaded heart-shaped bag. It also has a yellow background the flows up onto the handle. The handle and heart are outlined in red. A light skinned woman with black wavy hair, black eyebrows, thick eyelashes, gray eyes, and red lipstick appears on the bottom right. She wears a brown blouse with a salmon collar that is outlined in lace. Her head is titled slightly as she looks to her right at two large red roses. The two blossoms are fully open with several layers of petals. Some layers are a darker burgundy color and they are surrounded by nine lush green leaves.]
Japan, Kagawa prefecture, Sanuki, Shido kiln
Gennai Ware Five Square Chrysanthemum Plates, second half of 18th century
Molded stoneware with green, manganese purple, and yellow glaze
Gift of Mary and Cheney Cowles, 2013.95.3a-e
Gennai ware is named after the polymath Hiraga Gennai (1729–1780), a scholar, physician, pharmacologist, inventor, and writer. Gennai’s kiln employed novel techniques he learned in Nagasaki to produce distinctive, three-colored stoneware in bold glazes of yellow, purple, and green. The chrysanthemum design indicates an autumnal association; these plates were probably meant to be used at the time of the fall equinox.
Jeannie Kenmotsu
[Artwork Description: These five grass green stoneware plates are roughly six inches square and are decorated with a raised chrysanthemum flower and leaf design. The edges are tipped up giving the plates a depth of one inch. The flower patterns on all the plates are the same: Clockwise starting at four o’clock is a large golden yellow chrysanthemum along with a short bit of green branch and three leaves. At seven o’clock is a cluster of five leaves, four of them green and one yellow. At nine o’clock a muted purple mum is situated slightly behind the leaf cluster. At eleven, a yellow mum on a stem is shown from its underside as if reaching upwards to the sun. And at one o’clock is a cluster of three leaves, two green and the center one in purple. The flowers and leaves are in relief so that each detail is outlined from the edges of petals and branches to the veins on the leaves. The tipped up rim is decorated in the same manner on each side with sets of green scrollwork flanking an elongated yellow mum. The underside of the rim is incised with an abstract mum design that radiates outward. The base of the plates are unglazed.]
Korea, unknown artist
Phoenix-Shaped Kkokdu for a Funerary Bier, late 19th/early 20th century
Wood with polychrome pigments
Gift of Virginia Nelson, 2002.2.1
Kkokdu are decorative figurines for funerary biers. Made in the shapes of creatures and human entertainers, they were meant to protect and celebrate the deceased person. Phoenixes usually decorated the corners of the roof as symbols of transcendence, guiding the deceased from this world to the next. The bright colors and repeated patterns of this example reflect the spirit of joy with which mourners sought to send on the departed.
Jeannie Kenmotsu
[Artwork Description: This wooden sculpture of a phoenix in profile measures 17 5/8″ x 9 1/4″ x 4 5/8″. It is composed of multiple bright colors, but is predominantly red. It faces to the right, beak pointing forward and tail held high to the left. It has no feet and rises from a light blue wooden base that has cream and green scrolling designs on top, black dots spread evenly along the top edge, and a dark blue edge with vertical red stripes and yellow scratches over them. The bird’s body is salmon pink. A repeated pattern of three to four almond shapes in red with black bases shaped like sideways crescent moons and eight white raindrop shapes above runs from the bottom to the chest. Rows of different colored feathers rise from the base upward. First, three light blue feathers with diagonal dark blue stripes and white highlights on the right. Then four dark green feathers with white highlights on the right and white diagonal stripes. Then four red feathers with deep burgundy stripes and highlights. Next three partially visible light blue feathers with dark blue horizontal stripes, darker blue right edges, and white highlights between the stripes and the dark blue edge. Above are three rows of light blue feathers outlined in dark blue with thin white upside down triangles in the center surrounded by white dots. Above these and to the right is a patch of red with yellow and white highlights and blue and black vertical stripes. Above on the right is a bright red wattle outlined in cream. Behind it is a series of circles in different colors with cream spirals on top. The first is green, then red, light blue with dark blue spirals, yellow with burgundy spirals, and green with cream spirals. The head is mostly comprised of a large eye. It is black with a gray outline. Dark black lines outline the whites of the eye. A light blue border with dark blue hash marks on the bottom and small circles on the top connects the eye to the bright red comb at the top. It is made of four large red circles with cream spirals and outlines. The orange beak is pointed and has several scrapes and chips out of it. A thin yellow stripe connects the beak and the eye to the tail. The tail is formed with five large circles outlined in cream with spirals in the center. The top is bright red, then light blue with dark blue spirals, yellow with burgundy spirals, green with cream spirals, and black with cream spirals. Each tail feather curves out of the circle and flows down to the base of the bird in gentle curve. There are several scratches and nicks across the surface.]
China, unknown kiln
Langyao baluster vase, 19th century
Porcelain with langyao (copper red) glaze
Gift of Henry L. and Kay Corbett, 92.96
This vase’s elegant shape and impressive color are based on types that originated in the early eighteenth century, when the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen revived spectacular monochrome glazes of the earlier Ming dynasty. Ranging from delicate, pale shades to deep, saturated hues, monochrome glazes highlight the technical perfection of China’s ceramics industry. This ruby red glaze, known as langyao (Lang ware), demonstrates the vibrant end of the spectrum.
Jeannie Kenmotsu
[Artwork Description: This porcelain vase stands a foot and a half tall and is six inches wide. It is shaped simply with two main parts. The base begins flaring slightly then nips in before gently widening as the sides climb towards the top. They narrow creating a rounded shoulder around the vase. From there, a cup-like shape tops the vase, delicately flaring out at the rim. The surface appears smooth and shiny despite the crackled glaze. The base has a deep red glaze that appears slightly transparent as it reaches the vases’ shoulder. The upper cup-like portion bears mere streaks of the red glaze that fades to a cream color as it approaches the flared lip.]