Gallery Hours
Tues-Sat 10:00-5:00 p.m.
Sun 12:00-5:00 p.m.
(Closed Mondays and major holidays)
New Acquisitions: African American Art
A group of local community, university, and business leaders, headed by Donald Griffin, Jr., broker/owner of Griffin Realty, has formed a coalition to help the IU Art Museum build its collection of works by African American artists. These first acquisitions of what is hoped will become an annual endeavor include an ink drawing by Benny Andrews and prints by leading contemporary artists Kerry James Marshall and Martin Puryear.
After Yale: Pupils of Josef Albers
A renowned instructor at the German Bauhaus, Josef Albers (1888‒1976) immigrated to the United States in 1933 and was chair of the Department of Design at Yale University during the 1950s. This installation reveals the breadth of his teachings, which emphasized experience and material studies over theory. It features paintings by Albers and his students William Bailey, Ronald Markman, and Richard Anuszkiewicz. Andrew Wang, graduate assistant for European and American art at the IU Art Museum, is the guest curator.
Allegories of Artistic Genius
The seventeenth century saw the rise of a new theme: the genius of the artist. This installation features two works by the Italian printmakers Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione and Salvator Rosa that heralded their creators’ accomplishments, not through straight portraiture, but through classical allusions.
Camille Pissarro: Father of Impressionism
Nicknamed “Father Pissarro” by Gauguin, Camille Pissarro was an inspiration and mentor to a generation of Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist artists. He was also the movement’s most prolific printmaker. This installation of four works illustrates how Pissarro successfully captured atmosphere, movement, and the fleeting quality of light with a monochromatic palette.
Famous Faces: Portraits by Warhol
Although we tend to think of Andy Warhol as the cultural arbiter of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, he drew inspiration from popular imagery of the past as well as from his own time. This installation features several of the artist’s large silkscreen portraits of famous people.
Käthe Kollwitz: An Advocate for Women and Children
German Expressionist artist Käthe Kollwitz often depicted the physical and emotional tolls of war and poverty. This installation features two of her self-portraits, an image of death pulling a child from its mother’s arms, and a rare proof for a 1923 poster dealing with women’s reproductive rights.
Men in Turbans: Head Studies by Castiglione
Although the Italian artist Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione had seen traders from Africa and the eastern Mediterranean around the port of Genoa, his studies of men in “Oriental” headdresses was likely based in the northern tradition of “character heads” and a Baroque fascination with exotic types. This installation features eight small head studies and one large head study from Castiglione’s popular series.
Modern Sculptors in Indiana
Several modern sculptors of national and international prominence were born in Indiana, worked in the state, or came here to study. This installation features the work of artists Robert Laurent, David Smith, George Rickey, David Hayes, Alexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi, and (from October onwards) William Wiley, all of whom have Indiana connections. This installation is presented in conjunction with the Indiana State Bicentennial and has been endorsed as an official Bicentennial Legacy Project.
On the Move: The Advent of Modern Transportation in Photography
Advancements in transportation at the start of the twentieth century were recorded by the relatively new medium of photography. This installation features photographs of early experiments in air travel by a young Jacques-Henri Lartigue and C. Malcuit, as well as images of the explosion of the Hindenburg by Charles Hoff and the abstract beauty of a spoked automobile wheel by Paul Strand.
Picasso/Braque: Twin Pillars of Cubism
Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were friends and rivals, and both are luminaries of twentieth-century modern art. They worked so closely at the beginning of their careers that there is great speculation as to who first started using the revolutionary style known as Cubism. This installation features three pairings of work by both artists featuring similar subject matter.
Pietà: A Mother’s Love
In celebration of Mother’s Day, this installation features three prints–by Dutch artist Hendrick Goltzius, Italian Annibale Carracci, and Frenchman Jacques Bellange–representing the ultimate expression of a mother’s love and sacrifice through the theme of the Pietà. A variation on the Lamentation from the Passion of Christ, the Pietà depicts an intimate, poignant moment as the Virgin Mary cradles the body of her dead son Jesus.
Rembrandt’s Ecce Homo Prints
One of the pivotal moments in the Easter story comes with the presentation of Jesus Christ to Pontius Pilate and the people, also known as Ecce homo (“Behold the man”). This installation features two large prints of this subject by Rembrandt. Completed twenty years apart, they reflect a change in the artist’s style, as well as a different interpretation of the New Testament episode.
Remembrance: Cemeteries in Modern Photography
The funerary practices of America, particularly in the South, are explored in this installation of five photographs of cemeteries, from New Orleans to El Paso, by artists as varied as Walker Evans, Edward Weston, John Gutmann, and Clarence John Laughlin.