The first exhibition of its kind at the Museum, Philadelphia Assembled joins art and civic engagement. Realized in collaboration with a network of creators and activists from across Philadelphia, the project explores the city’s changing landscape and tells a story of active resistance and radical community building. This network includes artists, storytellers, gardeners, healers, and other community members, working together to explore social issues that resonate in “The City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection.” Philadelphia Assembled asks: how can we collectively imagine our futures?
Actions, conversations, meals, installations, and other events tied to the Philadelphia Assembled initiative have been happening throughout the city since spring. In September, the objects created through each network will fill the Perelman Building’s first-floor galleries. Admission during the run of the exhibition will be Pay What You Wish. A map of project locations and a schedule of public events are on the project website.
Curators
This project is initiated by artist Jeanne van Heeswijk, together with hundreds of collaborators from across the city.
Philadelphia Assembled is made possible by the William Penn Foundation, The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, The Daniel W. Dietrich II Fund for Contemporary Art, Wyncote Foundation, The Arlin and Neysa Adams Endowment Fund, Nancy M. Berman and Alan Bloch, Lynne and Harold Honickman, Mr. and Mrs. Milton S. Schneider, Constance and Sankey Williams, the Mondriaan Fund, Lyn M. Ross, and The Netherland-America Foundation.
Old Masters Now: Celebrating the Johnson Collection
November 3, 2017–February 19, 2018
Press Preview: Thursday, October 26
Dorrance Galleries
This major exhibition will focus on one of the finest collections of European art to have been formed in the United States by a private collector. The exhibition will present about 90 out of the John G. Johnson Collection’s nearly 1,500 works, including early Italian and Renaissance paintings by such masters as Botticelli, Bosch, and Titian, important seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings including Rembrandt and Jan Steen, and others by the contemporary French masters of Johnson’s day, notably Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, and the Impressionists. The exhibition will mark the centenary of Johnson’s gift of his collection to the city of Philadelphia and will offer a close look at some works that curators and conservators have analyzed and cared for over the years, exploring issues of attribution and authenticity, and undertaking other forms of detective work to form a better understanding of Johnson’s collection.
Highlights of the exhibition include Édouard Manet’s The Battle of the U.S.S. “Kearsage” and the C.S.S. “Alabama,” 1864, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s Purple and Rose: The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks, 1864, as well as major works by Dutch and Netherlandish painters, including Judith Leyster’s The Last Drop, c. 1639, and Rogier van der Weyden’s The Crucifixion, with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning, c. 1460, and Italian paintings including Titian’s Portrait of Archbishop Filippo Archinto, 1558, and Masolino and Masaccio’s Saints Paul, Peter, John the Evangelist, and Martin of Tours, c. 1427–28.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the Museum is publishing a digital catalogue, which includes thematic essays, archival resources, and detailed entries on 70 artworks. The essays focus on the formation and stewardship of the collection. The catalogue will be widely available to researchers of all kinds, and free to access.
Curators
Jennifer Thompson, The Gloria and Jack Drosdick Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, and Curator of the John G. Johnson Collection; with Christopher Atkins, The Agnes and Jack Mulroney Associate Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, and Manager of Curatorial Digital Programs and Initiatives; Teresa Lignelli, The Aronson Senior Conservator of Paintings; and Mark S. Tucker, The Neubauer Family Director of Conservation
This exhibition has been made possible by The Annenberg Foundation Fund for Major Exhibitions, The Robert Montgomery Scott Endowment for Exhibitions, The Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Kowitz Family Foundation, Friends of Heritage Preservation, Lawrence H. and Julie C. Berger, The Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Exhibition Fund, The Harriet and Ronald Lassin Fund for Special Exhibitions, The Robert Lehman Foundation, Lyn M. Ross, and Saul Ewing LLP.
Support for the accompanying digital publication has been provided by Lois G. and Julian A. Brodsky, Martha Hamilton Morris and I. Wistar Morris III, an anonymous donor, and other generous individuals.
Patricia Urquiola: Between Craft and Industry
November 19, 2017–March 4, 2018
Press Preview: Friday, November 17
Alter Gallery 176
The first solo exhibition devoted to the work of this internationally acclaimed designer will showcase her versatility in creating products, interiors, and architectural spaces. Among the seductive and cool works on view will be objects like her Crinoline armchair, Chasen hanging lamp, and Openest, an innovative office system for Haworth that was awarded the Best of NeoCon Competition in 2014. Photographs will introduce visitors to Urquiola’s renowned architectural commissions including the award-winning Ideal House project shown in Cologne, Germany, and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Barcelona, Spain.
On November 18, Urquiola will receive the Design Excellence Award from Collab, the Museum’s affiliate group for modern and contemporary design.
Curator
Donna Corbin, The Louis C. Madeira IV Associate Curator of European Decorative Arts
This exhibition is made possible by Lisa Roberts and David Seltzer. Additional support is provided by Collab—a group that supports the Museum’s modern and contemporary design collection and programs. The Collab Design Excellence Award presented to Patricia Urquiola is generously sponsored by Publicis Health Media.
Keith Smith at Home
February 17–July 8, 2018
Julian Levy Gallery
Keith Smith at Home focuses on the Rochester, New York, based artist’s mixed media and experimental artists’ books, photographs, prints, and textiles. It surveys his work over the past half century, with a emphasis on his handmade books. Smith’s art is marked by a disregard for any supposed dividing lines between “fine art” (such as photography, etching, watercolor), “craft” (hand sewing, bookmaking), and “utilitarian technologies” (transparencies and photocopies). With these materials, Smith creates an immersive world of objects and pictures rooted in a personal narrative that grapples with ideas of self-representation, domesticity, friendship, love, and desire.
Curator
Amanda Bock, The Lynne and Harold Honickman Assistant Curator of Photographs
American Modern (title to be confirmed)
April 18–September 3, 2018
Artists in the first half of the twentieth century created a bold new visual language to capture the essence of modern American life. This wide-ranging exhibition reframes examples of American Modernism in the collection, with an emphasis on painting and sculpture, along with significant examples of prints, drawings, and photographs. It features internationally acclaimed artists from the circle of the photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz, such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and Arthur Dove, along with other artists who contributed significantly to the art of their day.
The exhibition explores modernity from a less formal angle, focusing on work by artists who were drawn to depict modern amusements and moments of daily life, from burlesque performances and beach scenes by Reginald Marsh and Thomas Hart Benton to vignettes of people quietly occupying public spaces by Ben Shahn. The newest acquisitions to be included are two paintings by Horace Pippin and Road and Trees by Edward Hopper. The Museum will publish a catalogue in conjunction with the exhibition.
Curator
Jessica Todd Smith, The Susan Gray Detweiler Curator of American Art, and Manager, Center for American Art
This exhibition has been made possible by The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Annenberg Foundation Fund for Major Exhibitions, The Kathleen C. and John J.F. Sherrerd Fund for Exhibitions, the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Exhibition Fund, and The Laura and William C. Buck Endowment for Exhibitions. Exhibition-related education programming was generously supported by the Center for American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Credits as of August 17, 2017
Rachel Rose [working title]
Spring 2018
Rachel Rose, the recipient of the inaugural Future Fields Commission in Time-Based Media, will premiere a new video installation at the Museum. Setting her upcoming project in sixteenth-century agrarian England, Rose will explore the relationship between reality and perception, history and coincidence. Its first international presentation will follow at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin in winter 2018.
The Future Fields Commission in Time-Based Media supports the production and acquisition of a new video, film, sound, or performance work every two years. It is a joint initiative between the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy.
Curator
Erica F. Battle, The John Alchin and Hal Marryatt Associate Curator of Contemporary Art
Ongoing Exhibitions
Witness: Reality and Imagination in the Prints of Francisco Goya
Through September 6, 2017
Korman Galleries 120–123
As court painter to four successive rulers of Spain, Francisco Goya bore witness to decades of political turmoil and social change. The exhibition spotlights choice selections from four of his major print series made between 1797 and 1824: Los Caprichos (The Caprices), Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War), La Tauromaquia (Bullfighting), and Los Disparates (The Follies), all drawn from the Museum’s complete sets. The individual works on display reveal Goya’s ability to move between documentary realism and expressive invention, and engage a broad variety of themes from the spectacle of bullfighting to the chaos of life during the Napoleonic occupation of Spain. His celebrated etching The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, often interpreted as a self-portrait, conveys the period’s ever-present struggle between reason and imagination. This important work is on view along with other exquisite prints that show the inventive imagery and techniques that make Goya one of the greatest graphic artists of all time.
Curators
Danielle Canter, The Margaret R. Mainwaring Curatorial Fellow
Shelley Langdale, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings
Wild: Michael Nichols
Through September 17, 2017
Dorrance Galleries, the Great Stair Hall, and permanent collection galleries
The first major art museum exhibition dedicated to one of the world’s leading nature photographers surveys Michael Nichols’s achievement over the course of several decades. From the Serengeti and the Congo Basin in Africa to the giant sequoias and redwoods of the American West, Nichols focuses on the beauty and wonder of nature with a keen interest in the preservation of natural spaces. His photographs are presented with paintings, sculpture, and works in other media from the Museum’s collection to show the wild’s crucial importance as a subject for artists across time, offering a unique context for Nichols’s work.
Art Splash, presented by PNC Arts Alive, is the Museum’s popular family program that runs in conjunction with the special exhibition. Through September 4, it includes gallery explorations, studio activities, and weekend festivals with musical performances themed to nature. Storytime in the galleries, extended hours on Friday evenings, and tours designed for children on the autism spectrum are just some of the new experiences families can find at Art Splash this summer.
Curators
Peter Barberie, The Brodsky Curator of Photographs, Alfred Stieglitz Center
Guest co-curator, Melissa Harris
Support for the Wild: Michael Nichols exhibition is provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts with additional support from Leslie Miller and Richard Worley, National Geographic, Lyn M. Ross, Lynne and Harold Honickman, Donna D. and Marvin Schwartz, Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Anderson, Barbara B. and Theodore R. Aronson, The Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Exhibition Fund, Mrs. Susannah D. Rouse, Constance and Sankey Williams, and other generous donors. (Credits as of May 3, 2017).
Art Splash is presented by PNC Arts Alive, with additional support from The Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Mari and Peter Shaw.
Cy Twombly’s Iliad
Through October 8, 2017
Tuttleman Gallery 174 and Alter Gallery 176
Cy Twombly’s painting cycle Fifty Days at Iliam returns to the Museum from a retrospective of the artist’s work at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The celebrated paintings are presented alongside related drawings and sculptures. Twombly initially selected the six sculptures in this exhibition for the Museum in 2011 as complements to Fifty Days at Iliam. Five of those works are recent gifts to the Museum from the Cy Twombly Foundation.
Curator
Carlos Basualdo, The Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Senior Curator of Contemporary Art
Support for this exhibition has been provided by The Daniel W. Dietrich II Fund for Excellence in Contemporary Art.
Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain Scandal
Through December 3, 2017
Anne d’Harnoncourt Gallery 182
This exhibition celebrates the centennial of Marcel Duchamp’s legendary readymade Fountain and reveals the backstory of its glory and ridicule in the early twentieth century. In April of 1917, a store-bought urinal was submitted and rejected at the “no jury” exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in New York, provoking a fierce debate over its designation as art. With works drawn from the Museum’s unrivaled Duchamp collection and archives, this exhibition explains how Duchamp, with help from several close friends, sprang his notorious Fountain on his contemporaries and explores the consequences that followed. With an emphasis on the circumstances and discussions surrounding this breakthrough moment, Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain Scandal highlights the still-relevant ideas that resulted from this crucial episode in the history of avant-garde art.
Curators
Matthew Affron, The Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art
John Vick, Collections Project Manager
This exhibition is made possible by the Young Friends of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The Kiss
Rodin Museum
2151 Benjamin Franklin Parkway
This latest reinstallation of artwork in the Rodin Museum examines the embracing couple and the kiss as reoccurring themes in Auguste Rodin’s work. Bringing together bronzes, plasters, marbles, and terracotta works made by Rodin over a thirty-year period, the display explores the ways in which the sculptor depicted passion. Works such as The Minotaur, I Am Beautiful, Eternal Springtime, and Youth Triumphant demonstrate the variety of approaches, meanings, and allusions that Rodin brought to his figure groupings. In particular, Philadelphia’s copy of The Kiss, commissioned by Jules Mastbaum in 1926, is considered for its unique history and as an example of Rodin’s continuing appeal. As part of the reinstallation, other important Rodin sculptures, including The Thinker and the Monument to Balzac, are presented. This selection of works will be on view through January 2019.
The Rodin Museum is one of the world’s most celebrated places in which to experience Rodin’s work. Open to the public in 1929, this remarkable ensemble of architecture, landscape, and sculpture, designed by architect Paul Cret and landscape architect Jacques Gréber, has been restored to its original splendor.
Curator
Jennifer Thompson, The Gloria and Jack Drosdick Curator of European Painting and Sculpture and Curator of the John G. Johnson Collection
South Asian Galleries
Main building
In a complete transformation of our renowned South Asian galleries, one of the world’s most significant collections of art from a vast area including India, Iran, Tibet, and parts of Southeast Asia is presented anew. Highlights include a stone temple hall from southern India, courtly Indian miniature paintings, ornate Buddhist works from Tibet and Nepal, colorful textiles, and lively temple sculptures. The galleries also feature significant physical improvements, such as state-of-the-art lighting, flooring, and casework that enhance the presentation of storied objects.
New works added to the collection include Shahzia Sikander’s video animation Disruption as Rapture (2016), which reimagines the Museum’s rare 1743 manuscript titled Gulshan-i-Ishq (Rose Garden of Love), and two large piccawai, or shrine hangings.
Curator
Darielle Mason, The Stella Kramrisch Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art
The reinstallation of the Museum’s galleries of South Asian Art was made possible by the Estate of Phyllis T. Ballinger, The Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Institute of Museum and Library Services, The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, William Penn Foundation, Gupta Family Foundation Ujala, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, and The McLean Contributionship. Generous donors to this initiative include Steve and Gretchen Burke, Sailesh and Manidipa Chowdhury, Mr. and Mrs. Donald Kimelman, Mr. and Mrs. Shantanu RoyChowdhury, Pamela and Ajay Raju, the Jones Wajahat Family, Paritosh M. and Srimati Chakrabarti, Drs. Julia A. and Eugene P. Ericksen, Ira Brind and Stacey Spector, Lyn M. Ross, Dennis Alter, Andrea Baldeck M.D., Tushar and Amrita Desai, Shanta Ghosh, David Haas, Dr. Krishna Lahiri, David and Jean Yost, and other generous donors. Additional support for the Museum’s building project is provided by Hersha, Shanta Ghosh, and Osagie and Losenge Imasogie. (Credits as of October 2016)
