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Groundbreaking Works by American Modernist Focus of Special Exhibition Seeing the World Within: Charles Seliger in the 1940s October 21 through January 20
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orks by American modernist Charles Seliger (1926-2009), created during the groundbreaking first decade of his career, are the focus of the special exhibition, Seeing the World Within: Charles Seliger in the 1940s, which will be on view in the Museum of Art October 21 through January 20, 2013. A special preview of the show for the Institute’s members and special guests will take place on Saturday evening, October 20. Seeing The World Within is the first exhibition to focus on the paintings and drawings Seliger created early in his career. Seliger was a precocious talent who became a professional artist when he was still in his teens. He was especially influenced by the fantastic imagery, inventive processes, and the creative freedom of Surrealism. Although his work was rooted in the same basic principles and ideas explored by a group of his peers who came to be known as the Abstract Expressionists—many with whom he exhibited during the 1940s—Seliger sought a distinctly personal voice and artistic vocabulary and, typically, made more intimate pictures than many of his colleagues. Charles Seliger (American, 1926-2009), Organic Form: Air, Sea, Land Enveloped, 1948. Tempera on Masonite, 9 x 11 7/8 in. Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Edward Wales His first solo exhibition took place at Peggy Guggenheim’s Root Bequest, 57.229 Art of This Century gallery in New York City in 1945, when Seliger was just 19. For pictures in that show Seliger employed the anniversary commemoration of Root’s gift. Root met Seliger during Surrealist technique of automatism to paint, scrape away and layer the late 1940s when the young artist was receiving favorable critical opaque and transparent abstract shapes, colors, and lines that were attention and developing his mature style. Root, then in his mid-60s, intended to reveal the hidden structures and networks that exist had recently become aware of a group of young American abstract beneath the surface of the visible world. For several years Seliger artists who, in his words, were making “a serious effort to develop further honed this technique and the small, visually dense and spanew modes of expression.” tially complex pictures he was making at this time came to define his The exhibition was organized by Jonathan Stuhlman, Curator of work until his death in 2009. American Art at The Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C., where it preThe show is the first museum-organized exhibition of Seliger’s work miered before being shown at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in in 30 years. It brings together approximately 35 of his best works Venice, Italy, last summer. A fully illustrated catalog, with essays from the 1940s, borrowed from the artist’s estate, as well as from about Seliger’s artistic development in the 1940s, and the rich artis17 private and public collections in the United States, including the tic milieu that characterized that decade, authored by Jonathan Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Stuhlman and Michelle Dubois, is available for sale in the Museum’s Gift Gallery for $35. Regular Museum visitors will recall seeing displayed in the galleries from time to time one or more of the eight small paintings and drawExhibition admission is free to MWPAI Members. General admission ings from the mid-20th century by Seliger that were part of a large is $5. collection of modern American art the pioneering collector Edward Combination admission packages for Shadow of the Sphinx: Ancient Wales Root bequeathed to the Museum in 1957. Seliger’s affectionEgypt and Its Influence and Seeing the World Within: Charles Seliger ate recollection of Root’s personality and his conscientiousness as a in the 1940s are available for $13; students $7. collector was one of the highlights of the Museum’s recent 50th
Museum Open Columbus Day Come for Mummies and Milkshakes Monday, October 8, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Events free with Shadow of the Sphinx exhibition admission. Milkshakes sold separately at the Terrace Café. • Visit the “tomb” in the Shadow of the Sphinx exhibition and learn how ancient Egyptians mummified bodies. • Choose your favorite flavor milkshake to sip while watching the classic mummy movie Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy. • See the hilarious Three Stooges 15-minute film, We Want Our Mummy and the cartoon short Superman: The Mummy Strikes, screened continuously in the auditorium, and make a tomb-related craft. • Films and mummy activities are scheduled throughout the day; visit mwpai.org for the full schedule.