The New Mexico Museum of Art and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Jointly Present – The Fall of Modernism: A Season of American Art
Santa Fe, NM | June 16, 2015
THE FALL OF MODERNISM: A SEASON OF AMERICAN ART
(Santa Fe, NM—June 16, 2015) — The New Mexico Museum of Art and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum will present The Fall of Modernism, three related exhibitions and programs, between September 2015 and running through January of 2016.
At the New Mexico Museum of Art Georgia O’Keeffe in Process opens September 11 and will tell the story of the artist’s working technique. Preliminary sketches and photographs will be shown alongside finished works to demonstrate the steps, the thinking, and the technical art-making process of this 20th Century New Mexico Master. Artworks span the artist’s career from early portraits of family members created in 1905, to paintings executed during stays at Lake George in the late teens and first half of the twenties, to her iconic depictions of New Mexico, to her discovery of the view from the sky. The exhibition examines what makes an O’Keeffe artwork recognizable as an O’Keeffe and illuminates some of the ways that the artist approached her compositions. Georgia O’Keeffe in Process will feature more than 50 paintings, drawings, and supporting materials drawn from the New Mexico Museum of Art and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s collections, making this a rare opportunity to see many of these artworks together in one space. Included will be nine O’Keeffe paintings from the Museum of Art’s collection. The exhibition runs through January 17, 2016.
Also at the New Mexico Museum of Art opening October 2, 2015 and running through February 21, 2016, will be An American Modernism. The prints, drawings, photographs, and paintings on view, all from the 1920s and 1930s, explore how artists struggled to forge a distinctively American voice in the visual arts during the early years of the twentieth century. While some believed that American art should be identified with the precision and dynamism of the machine age, others rejected industrialization and commercialism for the perceived authenticity of nature and rural life. The tensions between these motives and the artistic vocabulary of modernism are showcased in this rich selection of more than fifty works of art.
The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s From New York to New Mexico: Masterworks of American Modernism from The Vilcek Foundation Collection, September 25, 2015 through January 10, 2016, shows works drawn from the collections of the Vilcek Foundation, New York, one of the country’s greatest collections of American Modernism. A century ago, American art experienced radical change as a group of innovative, highly-individualistic artists broke with past traditions to define a new art for this country, an art that expressed the energy, vitality, and singular identity of modern America. The artists who led that change are highlighted in this exhibition, featuring more than 60 masterworks from the 1910s to the post-War era by America’s most original abstract painters, including Georgia O’Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, and a dozen others. The exhibition is organized by the Philbrook Museum of Art.
Looking Forward Looking Back will be on view during the Fall of Modernism at the New Mexico Museum of Art. Looking Forward Looking Back does just that; drawing inspiration from the exhibition of works by Georgia O’Keeffe, this exhibition looks back at historic works by significant women artists in the museum’s collection while looking forward to new projects by contemporary feminist artists. The historic section includes works by Louise Bourgeois, Eleanor Antin, Eva Hesse, Ana Mendieta, Juan Quick-to-See-Smith, and Beatrice Wood. Contemporary artists Angela Ellsworth, Ligia Bouton, and Micol Hebron bring the exhibition up to date. Looking Forward Looking Back runs from September 11, 2015 to January 17, 2016.
ABOUT THE FALL OF MODERNISM:
The Fall of Modernism is a citywide collaboration that celebrates the Modernist art movement in America and runs from September of 2015 through January of 2016 anchored by the New Mexico Museum of Art and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. The New Mexico Museum of Art will present two exhibitions, Georgia O’Keeffe in Process and An American Modernism: Painting and Photography. It is complemented by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s exhibition, From New York to New Mexico: Masterworks of American Modernism from the Vilcek Foundation Collection. Numerous art galleries in Santa Fe will showcase Modernist art with exhibitions, programming, and events. For information about the exhibitions, related public events, and a joint museum ticketing program, the public is invited to check the web site fallofmodernism.org.
Media Contacts:
Steve Cantrell, PR Manager, New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs
New Mexico Museum of Art
505-476-1144
steve.cantrell@state.nm.us
Audrey Nadia Rubinstein, JLH Media
505-490-1837
Audrey@jlhmedia.com
