What’s on across the country

Editorial Staff Calendar, Exhibitions

Exhibitions: Across time, across the country

In a selection of exhibitions  across the country you can find an artistic survey of American history that will take you from the 1760s to 1960s. There’s a lot to learn, contemplate, and enjoy.

Start your journey at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, where American Adversaries: West and Copley in a Transatlantic World highlights the paintings of Benjamin West and John Singleton Copley. Their theatrical works captured the public’s imagination here and abroad, and the exhibition provides the cultural and historical context to explain why. You can read more on the exhibition in the Sept/Oct 2013 issue of ANTIQUES: West and Copley in Houston.

American Adversaries: West and Copley in a Transatlantic World · Museum of Fine Arts in Houston · to January 20, 2014 · mfah.org 

Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley (1738–1815), 1778. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ferdinand Lammot Belin Fund.

 

After the settlement of the New World came the exploration of the West. Go West!: Art of the American Frontier from the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, on display at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, presents a century of artworks and artifacts from the frontier and examines the ways in which these images have shaped the nation. Read more from the November/December 2013 issue of The Magazine ANTIQUES: How the West was seen.

Go West!: Art of the American Frontier from the Buffalo Bill Center of the West · High Art Museum of Atlanta · to April 13, 2014 · high.org

Yellowstone Falls by Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), c. 1881. Signed “AB[conjoined]ierstadt” at lower left. Oil on canvas, 96 ½ by 60 ¼ inches. 

 

Meanwhile, on the East Coast in the late eighteenth century, a fashionable group of New Yorkers were reaping the rewards of industrialization and corporatization. Gilded New York at the Museum of the City of New York explores the visual culture of opulent New York in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The exhibition presents a dazzling display of extravagant costumes, jewelry, portraits, and decorative objects from America’s flourishing elite.

 

Gilded New York · Museum of the City of New York · opened November 13 · mcny.org 

Cornelia Ward Hall and Her Children by Michele Gordigiani, 1880. Oil on canvas. Museum of the City of New York, Bequest of Mrs. Martha Hall Barrett.

 

While you’re at the Museum of the City of New York, take a look at Norman Bel Geddes: I Have Seen the Future. This is the first major exhibition on Bel Geddes who played a dynamic role in the design industry in the 1920s and 1930s. His streamlined aesthetic, as seen in his Futurama pavilion at the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair helped propel the US out of the Great Depression and into the modern age. You can read more on Bel Geddes and the exhibition in the Winter 2014 issue of MODERN Magazine on shelves soon.

Norman Bel Geddes: I Have Seen the Future · Museum of the City of New York · to February 10, 2014 · mcny.org 

Norman Bel Geddes, “Motor Car No. 9 (without tail fin),” ca. 1933. Image courtesy of the Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation / Harry Ransom Center.

 

Rounding up this visual survey of American history is A Great Crowd Had Gathered: JFK in the 1960s at the Yale University Art Gallery. Commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination, the exhibition features press photographs, and works made during the 1960s by artists such as Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand. Find  more on art in the Kennedy years at “A Long Time Gone.

A Great Crowd Had Gathered: JFK in the 1960s · Yale University Art Gallery · to March 30, 2014 · artgallery.yale.edu 

Monsey, New York by Lee Friedlander, 1963. Gelatin silver print. Yale University Art Gallery, Janet and Simeon Braguin Fund. Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.

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Shows:

“Private Goes Public” is the first ever public exhibition and sale from the Private Art Dealers Association, November 1-16, New York, NY.  pada.net

Find a stunning array of antiques at the Main Line Antiques Show. November 15-17, Villanova, PA. mainlineantiquesshow.com

120 dealers offer their rare and collectible books, maps, prints, and autographs and the Boston Book Fair. November 15-17, Boston, MA. bostonbookfair.com

One of the top antiques shows in the country, the Annual Theta Charity Antiques Show has everything a collector could desire plus more. November 21-24, Houston, TX. thetacharityantiquesshow.com

Find the unique, the unusual, and the beautiful at the Pier Antique Show, New York’s largest antiques, art, and collecting event. November 23-24, New York, NY.  pierantiqueshow.com

At the 32nd Annual Holiday Antiques Show thirty-five distinguished dealers feature furniture and decorative accessories from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. November 29-December 1, Williamsburg, VA. holidayantiqueshows.com

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