Displaying items by tag: pratt institute

Thirty-five out of forty-four senior art students were left without their sketchbooks, canvases, brushes, books, and completed works after a fire broke out at Pratt Institute in New York City on February 15, 2013. The fire, which ignited in Pratt’s historic Main Building due to faulty electrical wiring, also destroyed much of the structure’s roof and the studios that painting students are given in their final year.

In an effort to ease the students’ crushing loss, art dealer Larry Gagosian has partnered with Pratt to present a special drawing and painting exhibition. Gagosian was especially moved by Pratt’s fire as he almost lost a sizable chunk of his own collection after a fire broke out at his home in the Hamptons in 2011.

Flameproof will feature 100 works by Pratt’s 44 senior drawing and painting students and will be curated by Eugenie Tsai, the John and Barbara Vogelstein Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum. The exhibition is focused on the students’ collective experience at Pratt and was largely facilitated by the Pratt recovery effort, which provided students with donated supplies and gift cards from the school’s administration and local art stores.

Flameproof will be held at the Seagram Building on Park Avenue from May 9-14, 2013.

The Baltimore Museum of Art has organized the first exhibition devoted to the Jewish-American artist Max Weber’s (1881-1961) formative years in Paris. Born in Russia, Weber emigrated to the United States at the age of 10. In 1905, after studying at the Pratt Institute in New York, he traveled to Paris. Weber soon became acquainted with a number of important modern artists including Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), and Henri Rousseau (1844-1910). Upon his return to New York in 1909, Weber helped introduce cubism to America.

Max Weber: Bringing Paris to New York explores Weber’s transformation from a classical painter to a bold, pioneering artist. The exhibition features over 30 paintings, prints, and drawings by Weber, many of which are on loan from the Estate of Max Weber. The show includes works by Matisse, who spent time as Weber’s instructor, Picasso, Rousseau, Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901).

Today, Weber is not the artist most readily associated with the cubist movement. However, at the peak of his career, Weber was a bona fide celebrity; in 1930 he became the first American artist to be given a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Max Weber: Bringing Paris to New York is on view through June 23, 2013.