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here is much to look forward to this fall at the DMA. In September we kicked off an exciting exhibition season with the openings of Slip Zone: A New Look at Postwar Abstraction in the Americas and East Asia; Point, Line, Plane: The William B. Jordan and Robert Dean Brownlee Bequest; and Naudline Pierre: What Could Be Has Not Yet Appeared. Now, we’re preparing to celebrate the much-anticipated opening of Van Gogh and the Olive Groves, and we hope you’ll join us! As part of a cross-cultural collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, this groundbreaking exhibition brings together for the first time Van Gogh’s titular series, produced during the world-renowned artist’s yearlong stay at the asylum of SaintRémy-de-Provence. We can’t wait to share this exhibition with you—especially as the sole North American venue—before it travels abroad in 2022. This issue of Artifacts is dedicated to Van Gogh’s bold and experimental series, and in it you’ll find details of new discoveries uncovered during the collaborative conservation and scientific research project, highlights from the scholarship produced by both the DMA and the Van Gogh Museum, and revelatory insights into Van Gogh’s technique, material, and palette. We’ve missed regularly welcoming you on-site for all the special offerings you’ve come to love as a DMA Member, and it seems fitting that as these works are reunited for the first time, we’ll be making the return to in-person programming and on-site activities and events. If you haven’t yet made your way back to the DMA for a visit, we hope you’ll take a special trip to reconnect with us and explore Van Gogh and the Olive Groves—as well as the many other focused and special exhibitions on view this fall. We look forward to seeing you at the Museum soon!
Agustín Arteaga The Eugene McDermott Director
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MEMBER VOICES
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Van Gogh and the Olive Groves is co-organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam and is co-presented by Texas Instruments and PNC Bank. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. The Dallas Museum of Art is supported, in part, by the generosity of DMA Members and donors, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and the citizens of Dallas through the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture.
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ON THE COVER: Vincent van Gogh, Olive Grove, Saint-Rémy (detail), November 1889, oil on canvas, Gothenburg Museum of Art, Sweden. Photo by Hossein Sehalout, Gothenburg Museum of Art
ON VIEW CATCH THESE EXCITING EXHIBITIONS ON VIEW AT THE MUSEUM THIS SEASON.
DEVOTED: ART AND SPIRITUALITY IN MEXICO AND NEW MEXICO
TO JANUARY 2, 2022 | FREE Featuring over 35 paintings and sculptures from the DMA’s collection, Devoted explores two significant traditions of devotional art from Mexico and New Mexico: bultos, wooden sculptures of saints and other holy figures, and ex-votos, paintings that commemorate personal miracles. Created between the early 19th and mid-20th centuries, the featured works are historical examples of traditions dating back hundreds of years that continue to be practiced today.
PURSUIT OF BEAUTY: THE MAY FAMILY COLLECTION
WORLD PREMIERE
Pursuit of Beauty: The May Family Collection offers a look at the exemplary Dallas-based collection of American art that was built over 60 years by Thomas and Eleanor May. Twenty-eight works, whose dates span approximately a century, touch historical and aesthetic highpoints in American art and are united by a visual sense of harmony and tranquility. The exhibition features oil paintings, watercolors, and sculpture by many influential artists, including Cecilia Beaux, William Merritt Chase, Winslow Homer, and John Singer Sargent.
OCTOBER 17, 2021 TO FEBRUARY 6, 2022 FREE FOR DMA MEMBERS
TO JANUARY 9, 2022 FREE
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VAN GOGH AND THE OLIVE GROVES
Van Gogh and the Olive Groves is the first exhibition dedicated to Vincent van Gogh’s important olive grove series, created in 1889 during his stay at the asylum in SaintRémy-de-Provence. Brought together for the first time, the paintings reveal Van Gogh’s passionate investigation of the expressive powers of color and line, and his choice of the olive groves as an evocative subject. Co-organized by the DMA and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, this groundbreaking exhibition presents new insights into a beloved artist through works drawn from public and private collections.
POINT, LINE, PLANE: THE WILLIAM B. JORDAN AND ROBERT DEAN BROWNLEE BEQUEST
TO JANUARY 9, 2022 | FREE This exhibition honors a remarkable gift from the estate of distinguished art historian William B. Jordan and his husband, Robert Dean Brownlee. The couple built a collection over decades that included works by Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Henri Matisse, Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, and Jackson Pollock, among others. Spanning from the ancient to the contemporary, the nearly 70 featured works demonstrate an enduring fascination with artists’ use of expressive line and dialogues across media.
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: “SAM F”
TO FEBRUARY 13, 2022 FREE Sam F, an expressionistic portrait by Jean-Michel Basquiat, was created during the artist’s visit to Dallas in 1985. Gifted to the DMA by the late Samuel and Helga Feldman, this is the first work by the iconic American painter to join the Museum’s collection.
© Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York.
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NAUDLINE PIERRE: WHAT COULD BE HAS NOT YET APPEARED TO MAY 15, 2022 FREE
Naudline Pierre’s vividly hued paintings portray otherworldly narratives through depictions of supernatural beings entangled in complex scenes of struggle and intimacy. Debuting five newly created paintings and the DMA’s recent acquisition Lest You Fall, the artist’s first solo museum exhibition considers the possibilities of speculation and fantasy in offering love, care, and routes for escape.
GUADALUPE ROSALES: DRIFTING ON A MEMORY
DECEMBER 10, 2021 TO JULY 10, 2022 FREE For the next installation in the DMA’s Concourse mural series, Los Angeles–based artist Guadalupe Rosales will create a site-specific installation reflecting the interconnections between her artistic practice and her collaborative archival practice. Rosales combines photography, ephemera, video, and sound to create immersive and sensorial spaces that activate personal and collective memory. Her practice redresses the erasure and misrepresentation of Latinx communities while encouraging others to take an active part in celebrating and preserving their cultural histories.
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BOSCO SODI: LA FUERZA DEL DESTINO
TO JULY 10, 2021 | FREE This installation in the Museum’s Sculpture Garden features approximately 30 sculptures by Bosco Sodi. Born in Mexico City and currently based in New York City and Oaxaca, Sodi is known for richly textured paintings and sculptures that honor the essential crudeness of their materials. Created from clay sourced at the artist’s studio in Oaxaca, dried in the sun, and fired in a traditional brick kiln, the resulting works bear the beautiful marks of their interaction with the natural elements.
BAMANA MUD CLOTH: FROM MALI TO THE WORLD NOVEMBER 13, 2021 TO DECEMBER 4, 2022 | FREE
Mud cloth, or bogolanfini, originated among the Bamana peoples of Mali, and its designs can be spotted in products across the world, although the source is not always credited. The culturally significant designs on bogolanfini are painted by women with a dye made from fermented mud onto cloth handwoven by men. Featuring textiles from the DMA’s collection, this exhibition explores the complete labor-intensive process and identifies how the distinctive patterns have been used in Western products, from designer clothing to home furnishings.
SLIP ZONE: A NEW LOOK AT POSTWAR ABSTRACTION IN THE AMERICAS AND EAST ASIA TO JULY 10, 2021 | FREE
Slip Zone explores how artists in the Americas and East Asia revolutionized their forms, materials, and techniques in the decades following World War II. Through works from the DMA’s collection and important loans from local private collections, Slip Zone tells the story of the transnational development of postwar abstraction. The exhibition reevaluates the art historical legacy of the era to encompass simultaneous and intersecting international movements, highlighting the crucial contributions of artists working in Buenos Aires, Mexico City, New York City, Osaka, Rio de Janeiro, Seoul, Tokyo, and beyond.
OCTAVIO MEDELLÍN: SPIRIT AND FORM FEBRUARY 6, 2022 TO JANUARY 15, 2023 FREE
Octavio Medellín was an influential Mexican American artist and teacher whose work helped shape the Texas art scene for six decades. Octavio Medellín: Spirit and Form is the first-ever museum retrospective for the noted sculptor. The exhibition includes approximately 70 works, exploring the evolution of Medellín’s sculptural practice, his engagement with modernist trends in both his native Mexico and the United States, his public art commissions, and his legacy as a beloved and respected teacher.
ROOTED
DECEMBER 19, 2021 TO APRIL 9, 2023 FREE Drawn from the DMA’s collection and developed with community input, this presentation of art from around the world and across time looks at the complex relationship between people and the natural world. The exhibition traces the interdependence of people and the environment, the ways people draw on the natural world as a source of nourishment, and how people move through the natural world.
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© Dale Chihuly
CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS OCTOBER
OPEN STUDIO: ART BEYOND SIGHT EXPERIMENTAL ART Saturday, October 2, noon–4:00 p.m. Sunday, October 3, noon–4:00 p.m. Saturday, October 16, noon–4:00 p.m. Sunday, October 17, noon–4:00 p.m. ARTS & LETTERS LIVE: HONORÉE FANONNE JEFFERS Tuesday, October 5, 7:30 p.m. ARTURO'S ART & ME: SURPRISING SILK Saturday, October 9, 11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 13, 11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Thursday, October 14, 11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. FAMILY WORKSHOP: ART BEYOND SIGHT Saturday, October 9, 1:00–2:30 p.m. ART BABIES: NATURE SHAPES Monday, October 11, 10:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., and noon ARTS & LETTERS LIVE: RICHARD ANTOINE WHITE Monday, October 11, 7:30 p.m.
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DMA CIRCLE RECEPTION AND PREVIEW: VAN GOGH AND THE OLIVE GROVES Wednesday, October 13 Open to members at the Associate level and above MEMBER OPENING EVENT: VAN GOGH AND THE OLIVE GROVES Thursday, October 14, 6:00–9:00 p.m. DMA CIRCLE PREVIEW: VAN GOGH AND THE OLIVE GROVES Friday, October 15, 10:00–11:00 a.m. DMA MEMBER PREVIEWS: VAN GOGH AND THE OLIVE GROVES Friday, October 15, 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Saturday, October 16, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Sunday, October 17, 10:00–11:00 a.m. MAKE & TAKE: HAND-PAINTED CERAMIC TILES Friday, October 15, 5:30–8:15 p.m. LATE NIGHT: CELEBRATE VAN GOGH Friday, October 22, 5:00–11:00 p.m. LATE NIGHT EXHIBITION TALK: VAN GOGH AND THE OLIVE GROVES WITH DR. NICOLE MYERS Friday, October 22, 7:00 p.m.
NOVEMBER ARTS & LETTERS LIVE: AI WEIWEI AT MOODY PERFORMANCE HALL (PENDING FINAL CONFIRMATION SOON) Wednesday, November 3, 7:30 p.m. MAKE & TAKE: POUR, PUSH, PLAY: EXPERIMENTS IN PAINTING Friday, November 5, 5:30–8:15 p.m. FAMILY FESTIVAL Saturday, November 6, 11:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. OPEN STUDIO: VAN GOGH OLIVE GROVE PASTEL PAINTINGS Saturday, November 6, noon–4:00 p.m. Sunday, November 7, noon–4:00 p.m. Saturday, November 20, noon–4:00 p.m. Sunday, November 21, noon–4:00 p.m. ART BABIES: NATURE SHAPES Monday, November 8, 10:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., and noon ARTURO’S ART & ME: ROAMING IN THE RAINFOREST Wednesday, November 10, 11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Thursday, November 11, 11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Saturday, November 13, 11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. ROSENBERG LECTURE: PORTRAITURE AND FRIENDSHIP IN ENLIGHTENMENT FRANCE Thursday, November 11, 7:00 p.m. TODDLER ART: VINCENT’S COLORS Friday, November 12, 11:00 a.m.–noon Tuesday, November 16, 11:00 a.m.–noon Friday, November 19, 11:00 a.m.–noon FAMILY WORKSHOP: PATTERN PLAY Saturday, November 13, 1:00–2:30 p.m. ARTS & LETTERS LIVE: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF VAN GOGH COURSE LED BY DR. ELIZABETH NEW SEITZ OF FRENCH AFFAIRES AND PRIVATE EXHIBITION TOUR LED BY DR. NICOLE MYERS November 15–17, 7:00–8:15 p.m. CONSERVATION TALK: VAN GOGH AND THE OLIVE GROVES Thursday, November 18, 7:00 p.m. DMA MEMBER APPRECIATION WEEKEND Friday, November 19, 11:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m. Saturday, November 20, 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Sunday, November 21, 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
DECEMBER OPEN STUDIO: MARVELOUS MOTIFS Saturday, December 4, noon–4:00 p.m. Sunday, December 5, noon–4:00 p.m. Saturday, December 18, noon–4:00 p.m. Sunday, December 19, noon–4:00 p.m. ARTURO'S ART & ME: GO VAN GOGH Wednesday, December 8, 11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Thursday, December 9, 11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Saturday, December 11, 11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. TODDLER ART: BEST IN SHOW Friday, December 10, 11:00 a.m.–noon Tuesday, December 14, 11:00 a.m.–noon Friday, December 17, 11:00 a.m.–noon FAMILY WORKSHOP: MEETING VINCENT Saturday, December 11, 1:00–2:30 p.m. ART BABIES: NATURE SHAPES Monday, December 13, 10:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., and noon MAKE & TAKE: FROSTED GLASS ETCHING Friday, December 17, 5:30–8:15 p.m. FALL 2021 ARTIFACTS |
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MEMBER VOICES Support from DMA Members is vital to the work we do across the Museum and in our communities. This sentiment has proven even more true in these times. Here, we ask a few members to reflect on why they support the DMA and what they most look forward to seeing.
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A favorite work from the Questroms’ personal collection: KAAQ2005 by Nic Nicosia, Archival inkjet on photo paper
Why do you support the DMA?
Making fine art & art education easily accessible to the public, especially to children, is one of the greatest services any community can do for its citizens; because exposure to exceptional art & art education, in its many forms, fosters creativity, curiosity, & the craving for unprejudicial learning—which opens endless productive doors to the individual, no matter what their age, current education, or economic status. And today, when many schools, both public & private, have ceased to teach art or art history, it falls to the public museums & private galleries to fill this urgent educational need. Allen & I, because of personal experience, place the highest priority on everyone getting a good, well-rounded liberal arts education that includes the arts & art history, as well as math, science, history, reading & writing. As adults we’ve sought out ways to help public museums & galleries make fine arts education easily available to their communities. It truly changes lives for the better, including our own.
How did you start collecting art?
ALLEN AND KELLI QUESTROM
Membership type: DMA Council and Contemporary Art Initiative Member since: 2001
From a very young age, I was naturally attracted to art, architecture, dance, design, decoration, fashion & music; I studied & dabbled in them all. In elementary school, I detailed my friends’ parents’ cars to earn money to take guitar lessons, & soon was singing & playing w/ my younger sister the Top 40 rock tunes & getting hired to perform at friends’ parties. I hijacked my mother’s Singer sewing machine & improvised Butterick Patterns to make my own school clothes, which I soon was selling to friends, along with bedspreads, curtains & slipcovers to decorate their rooms, & this gave me the money to buy the art of friends whose work I admired. I set up weekend art sales for my artist friends, & invested my earnings to supplement the scholarship that would let me get a college degree in business. In summer of my Junior college year, I won a spot on the Junior Executive Training Squad of the then-best fashion department store in the USA, Abraham & Straus in Brooklyn, NY. My college major in Advertising/Sales Promotion/P.R. & Marketing was paying off! I did my Senior college year with no sweat about getting a great job, because I had one waiting for me upon graduation, & no sooner did I graduate & report into A&S as the new Sales Promotion Director for the Youth Market than I met my future husband, Allen Questrom, who had been tapped by the store’s CEO as Talent to Watch. We married & found that we also loved identifying, developing & marketing emerging fashion design talent whose names were then unknown, but who years later would be fashion stars. And this fun experience bled over into our interest in art: we’d identify newly emerging artists, buy their work & promote them to people we knew, & to the museums of which we were members & donors. To this day, we still “collect” only the work of emerging artists, not famous artists, & do what we can to promote them.
What artwork or exhibition are you looking forward to seeing at the Museum this fall?
On October 17, 2021, the DMA will open Van Gogh and the Olive Groves, which has been organized by the DMA & the Van Gogh Museum. It is dedicated to the last year of the legendary artist’s life in Saint-Rémy-deProvence. The DMA will be the only North American venue & then the exhibition will travel to Amsterdam. FALL 2021 ARTIFACTS |
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DAVID LIU AND MICHAEL FOUNTAS
Membership type: DMA Circle Associate Member since: 2017
Why do you support the DMA? Work available at the 2021 TWO x TWO
TWO X TWO
JOHN RUNYON Supporting since: 2001 How does TWO x TWO support the DMA?
TWO x TWO is the DMA’s largest fundraiser, with $93 million raised in the event’s 21-year history. The Museum has added over 275 major works of contemporary art to its collection through TWO x TWO proceeds donated to the Contemporary Art Acquisition Fund and exhibitions. Lisa and I have attended every TWO x TWO since its inception, and we collaborate with Cindy and Howard Rachofsky annually to raise funds for the DMA and amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research.
What advice would you share for those who are starting to collect art?
For those just starting out, I suggest that you be patient, educate yourself, and define a path for your collection. Museums are a great place to start the education process. Affiliating with collector groups within a museum provides increased focus and collaboration with curators, artists, and collectors—working with an experienced art advisor can accelerate the learning process as well.
We believe that thriving cultural institutions are core to creating a vibrant city and community. We’re proud to call Dallas home and feel so fortunate to have a worldclass institution like the DMA in our backyard. It’s so important that the Museum remains accessible to the entire community as art is meant to be experienced by everyone.
How did you start collecting art?
We began meeting gallerists and artists and regularly attending the Dallas Art Fair when we moved back home in 2016. From there, our collection has continued to evolve. We maintain a strong focus on emerging artists of color and artists from the LGBTQ+ community—voices we had little exposure to growing up and we feel have been long underrepresented.
What artwork or exhibition are you looking forward to seeing at the Museum this fall?
We’re most looking forward to the exhibition Naudline Pierre: What Could Be Has Not Yet Appeared. We are huge fans of the artist and are so excited that her first solo museum exhibition is in our hometown!
What artwork or exhibition are you looking forward to seeing at the Museum this fall?
Slip Zone: A New Look at Postwar Abstraction in the Americas and East Asia, curated by Katherine Brodbeck, Vivian Li, and Vivian Crockett, will bring together nearly 100 works spanning from 1944 to 1986. As an art advisor to some of the collectors who were invited to loan artworks, I am excited to see their works in an entirely different context.
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Above: A favorite piece from the Liu/Fountas Collection: One night in Beira town, one Fernando, one Afonso. Maria Joao tells Maria Ana to “let him go” at 2 a.m. but, living a novella seems practical for Maria Ana by Cassi Namoda Top left: Sabine Moritz, Flora, 2021 Photo: Marian Goodman Gallery
IN LATE 2019, THE DMA ANNOUNCED A TRANSFORMATIVE GIFT FROM THE ESTATE OF WILLIAM B. JORDAN AND ROBERT DEAN BROWNLEE TO ESTABLISH THE MUSEUM’S NEW WORKS ON PAPER DEPARTMENT.
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he gift included significant funds to create the William B. Jordan and Robert Dean Brownlee Endowment to support the department’s ongoing operations and programming, as well as a substantial bequest of over 80 works, including antiquities, 20th-century furniture, 19th-century oil paintings, ceramics, sculpture, silver, and 58 works on paper. This fall, visitors will have the opportunity to explore the depth and breadth of the collection in the exhibition Point, Line, Plane: The William B. Jordan and Robert Dean Brownlee Bequest. Featuring works by artists including Edgar Degas, Rosa Bonheur, Berthe Morisot, Henri Matisse, Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, and Ellsworth Kelly, the exhibition highlights an enduring fascination with the artists’ use of expressive line, the depiction of the figure, and dialogues across media. While the DMA’s holdings of over 5,600 works on paper have always been featured throughout the encyclopedic collection, they have yet to benefit from ongoing and dedicated study and exhibition. Bill Jordan and Robert Brownlee’s extraordinary gift radically strengthens and broadens the scope of the Museum’s existing and growing permanent holdings of works on paper, and this exhibition honors their visionary legacy and generosity. Jordan and Brownlee built their collection together while providing major philanthropic support to the arts in Dallas and beyond. Brownlee’s interest in contemporary art and interior design was reflected in some acquisitions, as was Jordan’s considerable knowledge of and instinctual gift for spotting historic European works of quality. Jordan’s reach extended well beyond the walls of the DMA—in 1967, he became the founding director of the Meadows Museum in Dallas, where he assembled a collection of masterpieces, creating one of the best collections of Spanish art outside of Spain. After holding the position for over 10 years, he joined the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth as the deputy director from 1981 to 1990. An important cultural leader and renowned historian of Spanish art, Bill Jordan served as an adjunct curator of European art at the DMA from 1977 to 1982; he was a member of the DMA’s Board of Trustees for six years, and of the Committee on Collections for five, three of which were spent as chairman. Later in his life, Jordan worked as a freelance scholar and continued curating major exhibitions for both Texas-based and international museums. Bill Jordan and Robert Brownlee provided the DMA with critical guidance and support over the years, and their extraordinary gift presented an opportunity for longstanding champions of the arts and education Allen and Kelli Questrom. Through a transformative $3 million bequest, the Questroms have generously endowed the new Allen and Kelli Questrom Curator of Works on Paper position, further heightening the tremendous impact this group of gifts will have on the Museum’s encyclopedic offerings. Point, Line, Plane: The William B. Jordan and Robert Dean Brownlee Bequest will be on view until January 9, 2022. Adolf Hiremy-Hirschl, Head of a Young Woman, 1890s, black and white chalk on brown paper, Dallas Museum of Art, bequest of William B. Jordan and Robert Dean Brownlee, 2019.72.29
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Since announcing the William B. Jordan and Robert Dean Brownlee estate gift in 2019,
the Museum has received two additional exceptional bequests, one of which brings into the collection the first work by the iconic artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Sam F, created in 1985 during Basquiat’s visit to Dallas, was gifted to the Museum by the late Samuel and Helga Feldman. The work is an expressionistic portrait of Samuel that exemplifies Basquiat’s style and use of salvaged materials—the portrait is painted on a door from the apartment building in which he was staying—and fills a significant gap in the Museum’s collection. As friends of the artist, the Feldmans shared a poignant connection to the portrait, and their gift is a testament to their tremendous generosity and support of contemporary artists.
Sam F will be on display in the Museum’s Concourse until February 13, 2022. © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York.
Henry Houston Hawley III, renowned scholar and author of over 70 works,
Top: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sam F, 1985, oil on door, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Samuel N. and Helga A. Feldman, 2019.31, © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York Center: Samuel and Helga Feldman Bottom: Hawley looking at statue
bequeathed many of the treasures from his impressive personal collection to the DMA, in addition to his entire estate. During his career at the Cleveland Museum of Art, he helped shape the CMA’s reputation for highquality acquisitions as the curator of Baroque art and later as the museum’s first decorative arts curator. He brought this same discerning eye to his beautifully eclectic personal collection, amassing paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts spanning the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The Hawley Bequest’s strength lies in its numerous decorative arts objects, and it brings to the DMA new forms and important designers that were previously underrepresented. We are honored to celebrate Henry Hawley III’s roots in Dallas, his enduring legacy, and his lifelong passion for the decorative arts. FALL 2021 ARTIFACTS |
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CONNECTIONS X COLLECTIONS SLIP ZONE: A NEW LOOK AT POSTWAR ABSTRACTION IN THE AMERICAS AND EAST ASIA IS GROUNDED IN THE STRENGTHS OF THE DMA’S COLLECTION AND THE THREE CURATORS’ GLOBAL EXPERTISE. THE EXHIBITION REEVALUATES THE ART HISTORICAL LEGACY OF THE POSTWAR ERA TO ENCOMPASS SIMULTANEOUS AND INTERSECTING INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENTS AND TRENDS, HIGHLIGHTING THE CRUCIAL CONTRIBUTIONS OF ARTISTS FROM BUENOS AIRES, NEW YORK CITY, MEXICO CITY, OSAKA, RIO DE JANEIRO, SEOUL, AND BEYOND.
THROUGHOUT THE EXHIBITION, WORKS BY ARTISTS FROM DIFFERENT GEOGRAPHIC REGIONS ARE EXHIBITED ALONGSIDE EACH OTHER, ILLUMINATING BOTH FORMAL AND PERSONAL CONNECTIONS. WE ASKED THE CURATORS TO SPOTLIGHT A FEW OF THEIR FAVORITE PAIRINGS.
W DR. ANNA KATHERINE BRODBECK HOFFMAN FAMILY SENIOR CURATOR OF CONTEMPORARY ART
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hile the narrative of US art history has focused on the singular achievements of Abstract Expressionism, it did not emerge on the world scene ex nihilo. Rather, US artists drew from multiple precedents, including the Mexican mural movement, which has special resonance for us at the DMA given our longstanding strengths in art from the region. In Slip Zone, Jackson Pollock’s Figure Kneeling Before Arch with Skulls is paired with Crepúsculo by David Alfaro Siqueiros. Siqueiros taught Pollock to use industrial paints at the Experimental Workshop in New York in 1936, which would later inform Pollock’s use of nontraditional art media in his classic era drip paintings. The expressionistic pathos of this earlier Pollock painting also mirrors the influence of José Clemente Orozco, whose murals he had seen at Dartmouth College the same year.
VIVIAN CROCKETT
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FORMER NANCY AND TIM HANLEY ASSISTANT CURATOR OF CONTEMPORARY ART
round 1968 Lynda Benglis began pigmenting large vats of rubber latex with DayGlo paint and pouring the dyed materials directly onto the floor. Created after Benglis visited a 1969 Helen Frankenthaler retrospective, this work is a nod to Frankenthaler’s method of pouring paint onto unprimed canvas. A founding member of the Gutai Art Association, Shozo Shimamoto was also deeply invested in experiments with materiality and technique. The artist often incorporated elements of performance in the creation of his paintings, such as throwing paintfilled bottles at the canvas. To produce Untitled – Whirlpool, Shimamoto poured layers of paint onto the canvas, removing the paintbrush as a mediating tool and leaving the final composition to chance and the physical, viscous qualities of the material itself.
Left: Shozo Shimamoto, Untitled - Whirlpool, 1965, oil on canvas, The Rachofsky Collection and the Dallas Museum of Art through the TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund, 2012.1.3, © Shozo Shimamoto Association. Naples. Bottom left: David Alfaro Siqueiros, Crepúsculo, 1965, pyroxylin and acrylic on panel, Private Collection, © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SOMAAP, Mexico City Bottom right: Mira Schendel, Untitled, 1960s, oil transfer drawing on thin Japanese paper between acrylic sheets, Collection of Marguerite Steed Hoffman, © The Estate of Mira Schendel. Courtesy the Estate of Mira Schendel and Hauser & Wirth. Photographer: Jeff McLane
M DR. VIVIAN LI THE LUPE MURCHISON CURATOR OF CONTEMPORARY ART
ira Schendel and Zao Wou-Ki drew upon language and its myriad graphic forms to create intricate works of abstraction. As postwar émigré artists—Zao in France and Schendel in Brazil—both were acutely receptive to the multiple sources of conceptual and material inspiration they encountered, including European modernism, phenomenology, and East Asian philosophy and calligraphy. In 1951, upon seeing Paul Klee’s fascinating use of line while visiting Switzerland, Zao returned to his earlier training in calligraphy to create compositions of atmospheric energy and ecstatic lines. Schendel’s compulsive repetition of icons, symbols, and signs also embraces the spontaneity and transcendent possibilities of language and abstraction. FALL 2021 ARTIFACTS |
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CONTEMPORARY SOLOS SPOTLIGHT
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Left: Bosco Sodi, Untitled, 2020, clay, Detail of Clay Sphere, Photographer: John Rohrer, Courtesy Studio Bosco Sodi Center and next page: Bosco Sodi: La Fuerza del Destino at the Dallas Museum of Art. Photo by Sergio López, courtesy Studio Bosco Sodi and Dallas Museum of Art
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SEPTEMBER 14, 2021 TO JULY 10, 2022
sing clay sourced from his studio in Oaxaca, Mexico, Bosco Sodi creates large-scale sculptures that honor the essential crudeness of their materials. The clay is shaped by hand and then left to dry outdoors for long periods of time before being fired in a rustic oven. The resulting works are unique testaments to the power of interaction between raw material and environment, bearing the marks not only of the maker but also of the natural elements. Sodi takes inspiration from many cultural traditions. Clay was an important material to ancient American civilizations, and the Zapotec in present-day Oaxaca have created
terracotta vessels for thousands of years. He also looks to the Japanese tradition of wabi-sabi, which values impermanence and imperfection, and to more recent art historical movements such as Arte Povera in Italy and Gutai and Mono-ha in Japan. Gutai and Mono-ha artists—featured in the concurrent exhibition Slip Zone: A New Look at Postwar Abstraction in the Americas and East Asia—often exhibited outdoors, harnessing the unpredictability and beauty of nature beyond museum walls. Presenting 30 sculptures by Sodi in the DMA’s Sculpture Garden, this exhibition provides a contemplative moment for visitors to explore the works among the natural elements they relate to.
ARTISTS ARE UNIQUE INTERPRETERS OF THE WORLD AROUND US, WHICH IS WHY HIGHLIGHTING THE WORK OF LIVING ARTISTS IS AN ESSENTIAL COMPONENT OF THE DMA’S MISSION. THEY DRAW FROM THE PAST—BUILDING FROM ART HISTORICAL INSPIRATIONS AS WELL AS THEIR PERSONAL HISTORIES—TO CREATE ORIGINAL WORK THAT NOT ONLY RESONATES IN THE PRESENT BUT OFTEN IMAGINES NEW VISIONS FOR THE FUTURE. THIS FALL, WE BRING THE WORKS OF BOSCO SODI, NAUDLINE PIERRE, AND GUADALUPE ROSALES TO THE DMA IN THREE SOLO EXHIBITIONS THROUGHOUT THE MUSEUM. FALL 2021 ARTIFACTS |
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SEPTEMBER 26, 2021 TO MAY 15, 2022
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he vividly colored paintings of Brooklyn-based artist Naudline Pierre can be considered fantastical portals to otherworldly spaces. A protagonist and a cast of supernatural characters recur throughout, embracing, striving, yearning, mourning, and metamorphosing. They traverse the canvases, their veiled eyes, ethereal textures, and melding forms resisting capture. Offering routes for escape, Pierre's paintings contain the potential for transformation, pleasure, and care. There are symbolic resonances with historical religious and devotional paintings—serpents, winged guardians, and radiant halos, to name a few. (Visit the European Art Galleries on Level 2 to see a painting by Pierre in dialogue with works from the 15th to 17th century.) But Pierre builds worlds in which her figures, in their multiplicity and contradiction, can be present with each other in ways not bound by cultural and art historical hierarchies. Her narratives create space for manifestations of Blackness and femmehood to elude rigid definitions of identity and flourish. In her tender scenes, Pierre embraces the flight toward a world that could be. The DMA presents the first solo museum exhibition for Pierre, debuting five newly created paintings and the Museum’s recent acquisition, Lest You Fall.
DECEMBER 10, 2021 TO JULY 10, 2022
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o an audience of over 300,000 on Instagram, multidisciplinary artist, archivist, and educator Guadalupe Rosales shares follower-submitted images and stories documenting the Latinx culture of her hometown, Los Angeles. She founded the accounts @veteranas_and_rucas and @map_pointz to redress the historical erasure and misrepresentation of Latinx communities in Southern California and beyond, while encouraging others to take an active part in celebrating and preserving their cultural histories. Rosales develops installations that combine photography, ephemera, and sound, and intersect with her archival practice. For the next edition of the DMA’s Concourse mural series, she collaborates with Dallas-based pinstriping artists and brothers Lokey and Oscar Calderon to create an immersive work that nods to lowrider culture and uses sound to replicate the aural experience of cruising in East LA. The rich colors and finely detailed designs spanning the 153-foot walls of the Museum’s Concourse evoke the iridescent surfaces of the customized cars on a monumental scale. In orchestrating this sensorial space, Rosales activates memories and invites viewers to collectively share in the experience.
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Guadalupe Rosales, Shortcut (day and night), 2017–present. Courtesy the artist
GUADALUPE ROSALES: DRIFTING ON A MEMORY
Previous page: Naudline Pierre, Hereafter, Ye Shall Be Changed, 2021, oil on linen, © Naudline Pierre, courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo: Paul Takeuchi. Left: Naudline Pierre, Lest You Fall, 2019, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, Lay Family Acquisition Fund, 2020.8, © Naudline Pierre, courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York. Right: Naudline Pierre, Closer Still, 2017, oil on canvas, © Naudline Pierre, courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo: Paul Takeuchi
C3 FEATURED ARTIST SPOTLIGHT For over 40 years, the Dallas Museum of Art’s Awards to Artists program has supported the work of living artists.
THREE SEPARATE AWARDS—the Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund Award, the Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund Award, and the Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant—were created to recognize exceptional talent and potential in young visual artists, fund travel, and provide the means to purchase materials for the development of new and ambitious bodies of work.
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Ari Brielle, Altar (self), 2020
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ince 1980 the combined awards program has given nearly $800,000 to over 300 artists, many of whom have gone on to have successful careers in North Texas and across the country. This December, DMA visitors will have the exciting opportunity to see the work of Ari Brielle, one of the 12 recipients of this year’s awards, through the Museum’s Featured Artist Program in the Center for Creative Connections (C3). Ari Brielle is an emerging artist, born and based in Dallas, whose work explores the politicization of the Black American femme body, identity, and experience. Brielle’s installation features a large portrait honoring Marsha Jackson, an activist who
fought and won the battle against the City of Dallas to remove Shingle Mountain—an illegally dumped and toxic pile of asphalt shingles and debris that stood nearly six stories tall in the predominantly Black and Brown neighborhood of Floral Farms in South Dallas. The C3 Featured Artist Program seeks to ignite curiosity, foster critical dialogue on themes presented in the exhibition, and provide a unique opportunity for visitors of all ages and abilities to creatively engage with art. We hope you’ll take advantage of all your membership has to offer by coming to visit and explore Brielle’s work!
Vincent van Gogh, The Olive Trees, June 1889, oil on canvas, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mrs. John Hay Whitney Bequest, 1998. Image © The Museum of Modern Art; photo by Robert Gerhardt
Q&A with Dr. Nicole R. Myers, Interim Chief Curator and The Barbara Thomas Lemmon Senior Curator of European Art
VAN GOGH AND THE OLIVE GROVES IS THE FIRST EXHIBITION DEDICATED TO THE LEGENDARY ARTIST’S IMPORTANT OLIVE GROVE SERIES, PRODUCED IN SAINT-RÉMY-DEPROVENCE IN THE FINAL YEAR OF HIS LIFE. BROUGHT TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME, THE PAINTINGS REVEAL VAN GOGH’S PASSIONATE INVESTIGATION OF THE EXPRESSIVE POWERS OF COLOR AND LINE, AND HIS CHOICE OF THE OLIVE GROVES AS A MEANINGFUL SUBJECT.
THIS EXHIBITION HAS NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE, AND YET VAN GOGH IS A LEGENDARY ARTIST. HOW DOES IT FEEL TO PREMIERE THIS EXHIBITION IN DALLAS? I’m incredibly excited to bring Van Gogh’s dazzling olive grove series to the DMA this fall. The paintings are not only beautiful but unique as well, and hold a special place in the artist’s life and production. Van Gogh and the Olive Groves is the very first exhibition to reunite this important, yet relatively unknown, series of paintings, and Dallas is the only place in the US to see them. In addition to learning about Van Gogh’s olive groves—the fascinating story of their production, as well as their evolving styles and symbolism—I hope that visitors will leave with a deeper understanding and appreciation of the artist not as the mythic persona of popular culture, but as a hard-working artist and complex human being. Van Gogh painted the olive groves while he was grappling with serious mental illness at the asylum in SaintRémy-de-Provence. He was thoughtful and deliberate in his selection of the olive trees as a motif and the visual means he used to convey both their appearance and the deeply personal, often spiritual significance they held for him. Produced in isolation during this very difficult period of his life, the olive grove paintings were intended to provide us—the weary modern viewer—with feelings of solace, peace, and hope, something that resonates today more than ever.
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Vincent van Gogh, Olive Trees, November 1889, oil on canvas, The Minneapolis Institute of Art. The William Hood Dunwoody Fund. Photo by Charles Walbridge Previous page: Vincent van Gogh, Olive Trees, June 1889, oil on canvas, National Galleries of Scotland. Purchased 1934. Photo © National Galleries of Scotland
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Vincent van Gogh, Olive Grove, July 1889, oil on canvas, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands. Photographer: Rik Klein Gotink Following page: Vincent van Gogh, Olive Grove, Saint-Rémy, November 1889, oil on canvas, Gothenburg Museum of Art, Sweden. Photo by Hossein Sehalout, Gothenburg Museum of Art
WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE PART ABOUT WORKING WITH THE VAN GOGH MUSEUM IN AMSTERDAM TO MAKE THIS EXHIBITION POSSIBLE? When I first started this exhibition, I had the hope that the Van Gogh Museum (VGM) would join me on the endeavor. They have three out of the 15 paintings in the olive grove series, in addition to related drawings, so their support was tantamount to the project’s success. I initially approached my colleagues at the VGM to gauge their general interest and whether they would be willing to lend artwork to the show. Their enthusiastic response exceeded my expectations, and a wonderful partnership was born on the spot. I’m fortunate to work with such great colleagues in Dallas and Amsterdam to bring this once-in-a-lifetime show to fruition. And now, after almost a decade in the making, we’re ready to share our discoveries and passion for Van Gogh’s olive groves on both sides of the Atlantic!
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HOW DOES IT FEEL TO APPROACH THE EXHIBITION OPENING AFTER SO MANY YEARS IN DEVELOPMENT? I began developing the concept for this exhibition in 2012, while I was researching the incredible olive tree painting by Van Gogh in the collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Although I had worked a great deal on the artist, I was shocked to find that the painting belonged to a significant series about which I knew nothing. I set out to learn more, only to find that there had been no exhibition or book dedicated to the subject to date. Moreover, there were many unknowns about the series, such as the dates of some of the paintings, the sequence in which they were made over a six-month production period, and which paintings Van Gogh was describing in his letters—something unexpected given the incredibly saturated research field dedicated to this beloved world-famous artist. With that, I launched the exhibition and the unprecedented comparative study that involved an international team of curators, researchers, conservators, and scientists. The exhibition planning took many twists and turns along the way. It’s never easy to borrow important artwork by heavily sought-after artists such as Van Gogh, and some of our loan negotiations took five years to secure. Just as the checklist was nearly finalized, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought about new challenges and uncertainties. Rather poignantly, the exhibition catalogue, which takes as its subject the artistic production of a painter confined within an asylum— an experience Van Gogh described as a “necessary and salutary quarantine”—was written and produced in its entirety during the self-isolation and confinement imposed by the pandemic. It was with a mixture of trepidation and sadness that after all these years of working tirelessly to bring this project to fruition, I didn’t have access to a library or other resources when it finally came time to start the book. But the work forged ahead and I’m deeply grateful for what we accomplished under these exceptional circumstances. As I worked at my dining room table turned remote office, I thought often of Van Gogh and his experience at the asylum. Never before had his enduring belief in the healing and consolatory power of art and of nature felt more relevant, his experience more relatable, his achievement more astounding. I hope that visitors to the show will take as much joy and comfort from the olive trees as I have over the last decade, and especially this last year.
Vincent van Gogh, A Walk at Twilight, 1889–1890, oil on canvas, Collection Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand. Purchase, 1958. MASP.00113. Photo MASP Next page: Vincent van Gogh, A Wheatfield, with Cypresses, September 1889, oil on canvas, The National Gallery, London. Bought, Courtauld Fund, 1923. © The National Gallery, London
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DESCRIBE SOME OF THE DISCOVERIES FROM THE CONSERVATION STUDY FOR THE EXHIBITION. At the heart of the exhibition are the discoveries we made by studying all 15 olive grove paintings in the series. My original questions—what month did Van Gogh paint each work? In what order did he paint them? Can we connect individual paintings to specific mentions in his letters?—were explored in-depth by an international research team over the course of three years. Conservators and scientists analyzed every aspect of the olive tree paintings, from the materials used to how their appearance was altered by time. The exciting results of this three-year study make their debut in the exhibition in the chronological display of the olive groves, as well as in a dedicated gallery that will present the research team’s methods and discoveries. It’s the perfect demonstration of what’s possible when art meets science.
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top left: (before conservation) Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Thankful Poor (detail) bottom left: (before conservation) unfinished version of The Young Sabot Maker on the reverse of The Thankful Poor by Henry Ossawa Tanner. on right: (before conservation) Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Thankful Poor
before conservation
TREATMENT OF AN EARLY WORK BY HENRY OSSAWA TANNER
BEHIND SCENES the
Laura Eva Hartman is the Paintings Conservator at the DMA.
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on left: (after conservation) Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Thankful Poor top right: (after conservation) Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Thankful Poor (detail) bottom right: (after conservation) unfinished version of The Young Sabot Maker on the reverse of The Thankful Poor by Henry Ossawa Tanner.
after conservation
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he Dallas Museum of Art and Art Bridges Foundation partnered in early January of this year to undertake the conservation treatment and technical study of Art Bridge’s newly acquired masterpiece The Thankful Poor by Henry Ossawa Tanner. Additionally, the project allowed for the first public presentation of the work, curated by Sue Canterbury at the DMA. When The Thankful Poor arrived at the DMA’s Conservation Studio, it was already strikingly beautiful. The composition holds space and immediately draws the viewer in. The painting is doublesided, presenting an unfinished version of The Young Sabot Maker on the reverse, a composition Tanner would complete the following year, and which now resides in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s collection. Prior to any conservation treatment, a thorough examination is always undertaken, including archival documentation research relating to any previous interventions. It became apparent that the work had undergone at least one relatively minor restoration campaign in the 1970s. It was also evident that the painting was cleaned and re-varnished in a second treatment, though no verifiable documentation was found. UV illumination was used to better understand which varnishes and treatment materials might have been used, as surface materials such as varnishes and areas of retouching can be differentiated based on their observed fluorescence. In this painting, the varnish is seen glowing green, and older areas of restoration present as black spots. As both of these treatments took place many years earlier, the varnish layers had become discolored, both yellowed and cloudy. An old tear that had been repaired using wax and paper had also
begun to open and needed to be addressed. Finally, a thick layer of discolored adhesive was scattered throughout the composition on the reverse of the canvas. Tanner was an innovative artist, known to experiment with layering techniques that require especially mindful cleaning approaches. Cleaning tests were conducted under microscopic magnification to determine a cleaning protocol to remove the layers of discolored varnish. To better understand the boundary between paint and varnish, a microscopic sample was used to gain a view of the various layers. The resulting cleaning process was executed almost entirely under the microscope to ensure the most delicate layers were preserved. The tear was then mended and areas of losses were filled and retouched using reversible conservation materials. Wide cracks, known as traction cracks, were carefully retouched to better integrate the surface visually. The cleaning was transformative. The layers of discolored varnish lifted to reveal a colorful palette previously unseen. The overall tone of the painting shifted to unveil a much cooler composition, balancing the contrast. It was an honor to work on this beautiful painting. Results from the treatment allow the work to be appreciated as the artist intended. Tanner was a master of tone and light, both of which he captured so beautifully in this magnificent composition. Research and treatment work were done collaboratively with my fabulous curatorial colleagues, both at the DMA and at Art Bridges, and I want to give a heartfelt acknowledgment to Sue Canterbury, Martha MacLeod, and Margi Conrads for their collaboration.