EXHIBITIONS

American Spirit: The A.G. Edwards/Wachovia Securities Collection

April 12 - July 13, 2008
Daywood Gallery

Opening Reception takes place at 2 p.m. April 13, 2008, with music by The 1937 Flood

 

George Catlin (American, 1796-1872), Buffalo Hunt, Chase, Plate 6 from North American Indian Portfolio, 1844. Hand-colored lithograph, 12 1/4 x 17 1/2 inches (image).

In 1991, A.G. Edwards created a traveling exhibition program which encourages branch offices to partner with local art institutions to bring a selection of the corporate collection, based in St. Louis, Missouri, to their communities. The Huntington Museum of Art is excited to host a branch-sponsored exhibition that presents 55 works selected from a large collection of more than 4,000 works by noted American and European artists.

The exhibition addresses our "American Spirit" with an amazing array of prints, posters, and photographs from the mid-19th century to the end of the 20th century. Each work speaks to what it is that makes us uniquely American. The overriding themes of the exhibition deal with the issues of western expansion in the 19th century, small town life, urban life, recreational pastimes, industry (steel, oil, rail, steamboats), the immigrant experience, our national icons, women's rights, and war time propaganda.

Artists we may think of as completely disparate (for example: Andy Warhol and George Catlin) fit together perfectly in this exhibition. Artists range the gamut from painters depicting the early west such as George Catlin, and George Caleb Bingham; illustrators who produced war propaganda posters such as Howard Chandler Christy and Edward Penfield; photojournalists such as W. Eugene Smith and Eudora Welty; Pop artists Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein; to avant garde artists such as Vito Acconci and Robert Rauschenberg. And, many of these images have become icons of American art, such as Alfred Stieglitz's photograph entitled The Steerage, and James Montgomery Flagg's Uncle Sam posters.

The artists included in this exhibition capture our collective memories , and address the major concerns of Americans both today and throughout our country's history - the same values as denoted in the Declaration of Independence - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

This exhibition is generously sponsored by the Huntington Office of A.G. Edwards. A.G. Edwards is a division of Wachovia Securities, LLC. Additional support for this exhibition comes from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts, St. Mary’s Medical Center, the Herald-Dispatch, the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce and The Earl and Nancy Heiner Donor Advised Fund of the Foundation for the Tri-State Community, Inc.

 

Bill of Rights
Daywood Print Room

April 12 - July 13, 2008

 

Paul Levy (American, b. 1944), The Right to Bear Arms, 1971, silkscreen. Gift of Huntington Publishing Company, 1975.25.6.

Created between 1970 and 1974, this series of 15 screen prints by artist Paul Levy (American, b. 1944) depict artistic representations of a selection of the rights granted to each American under the United States Constitution. Levy, who started the series while living in Cincinnati in 1970 and finished it after moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts, received his artistic training at the University of Cincinnati and earned an MFA from Ohio University in 1973.

The series of works speak to a specific situation in America at that particular time. "In the later 1960s, the American flag was raised as ammunition in a war of opposing views over the conflict in Vietnam. A patriotic campaign proclaimed, 'Honor flag and country,' while others chose to invert the flag as a sign of national distress," the artist commented in an interview published in the February 26, 1976, issue of The Herald Dispatch. "As an individual and an artist, I witnessed an erosion of the Bill of Rights, which was ratified 185 years ago," Levy continued. "The press was being neutralized, privacy was being invaded and, as in Chicago in 1968, peaceable assembly was anything but peaceable. My graphic representation of how the flag got caught in the middle of constitutional conflict comes in the medium of silkscreen."

Paul Levy (American, b. 1944), The Right of Privacy, 1970-74, silkscreen. Gift of Huntington Publishing Company, 1975.25.8.

The stars and stripes are abstractly broken down to their formal elements in some works, while other prints accompany the flag's recognizable colors and shapes with other symbols to give visual expression to the Amendments to the Constitution that are so commonplace. The Right to Bear Arms, from 1971, for instance, frames an image of a muscular arm and clenched fist holding a mallet reminiscent of the Arm and Hammer baking soda logo, with a border of stars and stripes. Freedom from Cruel and Unusual Punishment, 1970-1974, incarcerates the flag behind bars, while The Right of Privacy, 1970-1974, provides a glimpse of the flag through a keyhole. Cleverly composed and sometimes humorous in nature, these works go beyond an accessible Pop sensibility to provide commentary on the political climate of the United States during a particular historical period.

The works in this exhibition are all gifts of the Huntington Publishing Company to HMA.

 

 

 

 

 

Walter Gropius Master Artist:
Art Werger Exhibit

April 19-June 15, 2008

An exhibition of Art Werger’s work is currently on display on HMA’s Bridge Gallery.

Art Werger’s intaglio prints focus on scenes from his childhood. Providing an almost voyeuristic view of urban scenes, his etchings and mezzotints focus on the tension between the individual and his or her environment. In a manner reminiscent of film noir or the cinematic techniques of Alfred Hitchcock, Werger captures the strangely incongruous sense of an individual’s isolation and loneliness as he goes about his daily life amidst urban crowds.

In describing his work, Werger says, “The people are seen in casual activities which dominate their daily routines, often preoccupied or oblivious to their situations. They are often observed from an elevated point so that the environment lays out in front of the viewer. The viewer becomes an omniscient voyeur, privy to the world below, yet curiously removed from it. As a cinematic device, this abstract angle allowed for an overview of the scene as well as an introduction to the characters within the environment. The characters’ actions are intended to suggest a narrative which requires the viewer’s participation to be resolved.”

Born in 1955, Werger received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1978 and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1982. Chairman of Fine Arts at Wesleyan College in Macon, GA for 18 years, Werger is currently a Professor of Printmaking and Director of Foundations at the University of Ohio in Athens. Represented by such galleries as S. E. Feinman Fine Arts In New York and Davidson Gallery in Seattle, Werger has exhibited internationally and has works in several collections including the Boston Public Library, the Brooklyn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

 

Allied Artists of West Virginia

66th Juried Exhibition
May 24 – June 22, 2008
Gallery Three

For the first time, Allied Artists of West Virginia, Inc., a non-profit, educational and cultural association whose mission is to encourage, nurture and present the work of West Virginia artists to the community, will hold its biennial juried exhibition at the Huntington Museum of Art.

With more than 200 members, The Allied Artists of West Virginia encourage artists to show their work, foster the development of new works, and further artistic interests in the community.

The juror for this year’s exhibition is Andrew Johnson, Associate Professor of Art, Carnegie Melon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Awards totaling $4,000 will be given, including $1,000 Best of Show, $500 Awards of Excellence in two-dimensional and three-dimensional categories, and Purchase and Merit Awards as selected from the actual works.

This program is being presented with financial assistance from the West Virginia Division of Culture and History and the National Endowment for the Arts with approval from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts.