Displaying items by tag: wadsworth atheneum museum of art

Starting this week, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art will be something it hasn't been in recent memory: overwhelming.

When the museum unveils the final stage of its multi-year renovation this week, it will be the first time in 50 years that every gallery in the museum is in use, and its exhibit space will be larger than it's ever been.

"When entering Morgan Great Hall, people will gasp, or that's what we're hoping," said museum Director Susan Talbott. "This is the most number of paintings I believe we've had [on exhibit simultaneously], ever."

The new exhibit at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, "Aspects of Portraiture," is divided into three categories: traditional portraiture, symbolic portraiture and narrative portraiture. But the exhibit shows that even within the categories, there are categories.

Four charming traditional portraits of Roxbury sculptor Alexander Calder show different aspects of one man. One, taken in 1975 by Pedro Guerrero, shows Calder smiling in a ratty straw hat. In "Last Photograph of Calder," a 1975 photo by Calder's neighbor and friend, Inge Morath, he glares at the camera, silently ordering Morath to go away. In Morath's 1964 "Calder with Maquette for Stabile with Gunrest," he proudly presents his creation, a field full of cows in the background. In Morath's "Calder at Roxbury, 1969," he hides behind one of his sculptures.

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art will display rarely-exhibited tapestries from the eighteenth century in its soaring Morgan Great Hall during the final phase of the museum’s five-year, $33 million renovation. The large, intricate tapestries-which depict the saga of Greek hero Jason-will be on view through April 2015, at which point the Great Hall will be transformed in preparation for the Sept. 19 grand reopening of the Morgan Memorial Building.

The Jason Tapestries are enormous in size-ranging in height up to 14 feet, and in width up to 24 feet-presenting a challenge for curators in exhibiting them on a regular basis.

A hard-hat tour on Thursday of the galleries currently under renovation at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford showed a lot of what one would expect at a hard-hat tour — ladders, primered walls, workmen with power tools — and one fun surprise.

On one wall of what was once the management office of the Amistad Center for Art & Culture in the second-floor Colt mezzanine area is a room-wide, three-primary-color mural by Sol LeWitt. "Wall Drawing #352" has been there since 1980.

Employees have always known about the mural. They put their office furniture in front of it and sat there every day. But the area has been off-limits to the public for 15 years.

The European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF) has announced the recipients of this year's Museum Restoration Fund, "Art Daily" reports. The Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford were awarded a combined €50,000 ($62,000) for the restoration of early works by Francisco de Zurbarán.

The Kunstpalast Düsseldorf's "St. Francis of Assisi in Meditation" (1639) is one of only five Zurbarán works in a public German institution. The Wadsworth Atheneum's "St. Serapion" (1628) is considered to be one of Zurbarán's best early works.

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, has acquired a rare self-portrait by the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, who is widely regarded as the most important female artist before the modern period. The institution purchased “Self-Portrait as a Lute Player” from Christie’s New York using funds from the recently established Charles H. Schwartz Fund for European Art. It is the first painting by a female artist of the Baroque period to enter the Wadsworth Atheneum’s permanent collection.

“Self-Portrait as a Lute Player” is one of only three uncontested self-portraits by Gentileschi that are known to exist. The work was most likely commissioned by the Grand Duke Cosimo II de’Medici and was recorded in the Medici collection as early as 1638. The painting’s whereabouts remained a mystery until it surfaced in a private collection in 1998. It was subsequently featured in major Gentileschi exhibitions around the world. The Wadsworth’s recent acquisition expands the museum’s already-stellar collection of Baroque masterpieces, which includes works by Caravaggio, Claude Lorrain, and Nicolas Poussin.

“Self-Portrait as a Lute Player” will make its public debut alongside works by Fra Angelico, Caravaggio, Artemisia’s father Orazio Gentileschi, Claude Monet, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 2015 following a reinstallation of the museum’s European collections in the Morgan Memorial Building, which is undergoing an extensive renovation.

Burst of Light: Caravaggio and His Legacy, which is currently on view at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, CT, is the first exhibition in over 25 years to focus on the legacy of the Italian master, Caravaggio (1571-1610). The show explores Caravaggio’s profound influence on 17^th century European art and includes 30 works by followers of the artist known as “Caravaggisti.”

Burst of Life will present five original paintings by Caravaggio including the Wadsworth’s own Ecstasy of St. Francis, which was acquired by the museum in 1944, making it the first Caravaggio work to join an American museum’s collection. The other works on view are Martha and Mary Magdalen from the Detroit Institute of Arts, Salome Receives the Head of St. John the Baptist from the National Gallery in London, The Denial of St. Peter from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, MO.

Burst of Light explores Caravaggio’s renowned use of light, painstaking attention to detail, and emotionally captivating compositions. The exhibition will be on view through June 16, 2013.