ROMARE BEARDEN:
THE ARTIST AS ACTIVIST
Organized by the Romare Bearden Foundation
This exhibition examines how the artist agitated for change through the power of his art and writing. This show traces Bearden’s evolution into a true master artist whose work changed our ways of seeing the world and thus our readiness for action in it. Included are collages, works on paper and graphics, as well as examples of his magazine covers and editorial cartoons. The exhibition premiered at the Nathan Cummings Foundation, New York, in April 2011.

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CHARLES WHITE:
IMAGES OF DIGNITY
Charles White (1918–1979) is one of the most significant African American artists of the 20th Century. White depicted both the depth of pain and the indomitable power inherent in the lives of African Americans. This special exhibition features 44 works of art - drawings, prints and paintings, spanning the late 1930’s -1970’s. Some of his most important works are represented in this exhibition. Included are 10 original works originally commissioned by the Johnson Publishing Company, illustrating major figures in Black History. The exhibition is curated by Charlotte Shermanwho has been a champion of White’s work since the 1960’s.

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ROBERT INDIANA: A - Z -- CHILDHOOD DRAWINGS, LOVE, HOPE, & THE ALPHABET
This new exhibition follows the 77 year ongoing career of this seminal artist from 1934 to his current work in 2011/2012. Featured are his icons – EAT, LOVE and HOPE and his latest masterpiece, THE ALPHABET, in many ways, the culmination of a his journey as the world's premiere Word Artist. Presented are 70 works showcasing Indiana’s unique method of working on paper, canvas, print, and in 3 dimensions with the same image. Several important works have never before shown, including the origanal LOVE sculpture, a body of childhood drawings that track his early development, and ephermera from the artist.

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TOUGH BY NATURE: PORTRAITS OF COWGIRLS AND RANCH WOMEN OF THE AMERICAN WEST
Organized by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Univ. of Orgeon, Eugene. For the past 15 years Lynda Lanker traveled throughout the western United States sketching, painting, interviewing and photographing iconic women in her commitment t­o preserve the spirit and stories of ranch women and cowgirls. Included 58 paintings, works on paper and prints, and presents the portraits and stories of more than fifty women, from thirteen western states. The catalog includes a foreword by Larry McMurtry and an introduction by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

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PAN: A Graphic Arts Time Capsule
of Europe, 1895-1900
The exhibition includes 80 works from the important German multi-volume Art Nouveau periodical, PAN, published between 1895-1900. It is replete with plates, illustrations, color initials, vignettes and tail-pieces representing a multitude of processes of modern picture reproduction, including original lithographs, etchings, and woodcuts, and other original and near-original processes in black and white or full color. Pan presents a collection of brilliant graphic works by such French, Dutch, Belgian, German, English, and Swedish artists as Rodin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Signac, and Seurat;  Van de Velde; Rops; Kollwitz and Behrens; Nicholson, Rothenstein, and Pennell; and Anders Zorn, among many others. This is the first extensive exhibition of PAN to discover the brilliance of original prints by less well known contributors such as Walter Leistikow, Hans Thoma, Wilhelm Volz, Otto Eckmann, Eugen Kirchner, and Albert Krüger. The literary contributors include such figures as Bode, Nietzsche, Novalis, Mallarmé, Maeterlinck, and Verlaine. The exhibition is enriched with an introduction and commentaries on the plates by the distinguished Curator Emeritus, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Art, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Robert Flynn Johnson; together with a cultural overview by the eminent curator and art critic, Peter Frank, and art historian and independent curator, Victoria Martino.

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DAVID HOCKNEY:
SIX FAIRY TALES
In 1970 David Hockney and Petersburg Press released Six Fairy Tales, a compilation of 39 etchings and the texts ofJacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s fairy tales, including: The Little Sea Hare, Fundevogel, Rapunzel, The Boy Who Left Home to Learn Fear,  Old Rinkrank, and Rumpelstilzchen. In this exhibition of the 39 etchings illustrating the 6 fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm, Hockney has given each fairy tale his own interpretation. Rather than illustrating the stories literally, he has chosen vivid images to encapsulate a mood or detail. His contemporary and often humorous approach to the tales is reflected in the quirky nature of the images. Hockney had always loved Grimm's Fairy Tales and had read all 220 of them. He also admired earlier illustrations to them by Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac. In 1969 he decided to make his own images. He especially enjoyed the elements of magic in the tales, and his images focus on his imaginative response to the descriptions in the text rather than attempting to concentrate on the most important events in the narrative. They are therefore more than simply illustrations: they stand on their own as images, independent of the stories.The etchings were drawn directly onto copper plates by Hockney between May and November 1969. It was a decade in which etching featured strongly for Hockney. As well as Grimms’ Fairy Tales, he made two other important series: A Rake's Progress (1961-3) and Illustrations for Thirteen Poems for CP Cavafy (1966). This is the first time that these works have been made available for circulation to museums in the US.

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ALPHONSE MUCHA:
THE DHAWAN COLLECTION
An exhibition of works by the world-acclaimed Czech Art Nouveau artist, Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), is being made available as a new traveling exhibition. The works come from the Raj Dhawan Collection, Los Angeles, CA, one of the finest private collections of Mucha’s work in the U.S. Presented are; rare original lithographs and proofs; 1 oil painting; 4 drawings; 1 pastel; and books, posters, portfolios and ephemera. Mucha is most often remembered for the prominent role he played in shaping the aesthetics of French Art Nouveau at the turn of the 20th century. As a struggling and relatively unknown artist of Czech origin living in Paris, Mucha achieved immediate fame when, in December 1894, he accepted a commission to create a poster for one of the greatest actresses of this time, Sarah Bernhardt. The success of that first poster brought a 6 year contract between Bernhardt and Mucha and in the following years his work for her and others included costumes and stage decorations, designs for magazines and book covers, jewellery and furniture and numerous posters. Mucha's distinctive style experienced a strong revival in the 1960s influencing the design of psychedelic posters. The exhibition will be available beginning in 2011.

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EUGENE CARRIERE:
SHADOW AND SUBSTANCE
Selections from the Nick Vlachos Collection
Eugène Carrière (1849–1906), whose painting was described by a contemporary as reality having the magic of dreams, was an important French exponent of the late-nineteenth-century visionary Symbolist movement. He possessed close ties to the sculptor Auguste Rodin, with whom he helped to found the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1890. While the world’s largest public collection of work by Carrière is to be found in Paris’s prestigious Musée d’Orsay, the most comprehensive private collection is the one assembled by Dr. Nick Vlachos in Bloomington, Illinois. The exhibition which will be presented at the Hamilton Art Gallery, Ontario, Canada in January 2011 features 37 works, ranging from portraits and images of mothers and children to figure studies and landscapes.

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CHRISTO & JEANNE-CLAUDE:
THE TOM GOLDEN COLLECTION from the Collection
of the Sonoma County Museum,
Santa Rosa, CA

In 2001 Tom Golden donated his collection of works by renowned artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude to the Sonoma County Museum. Golden's personal and professional relationship with the artists began when he met them during the 1974 public hearings for their project "Running Fence" in Sonoma and Marin counties, 1972-1976. Golden went on to manage or assist with a number of the artists' large scale projects.Golden's remarkable collection reflects his friendship with and admiration of Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Over 125 original drawings, sculptures, collages and photographs lovingly trace their impressive careers.

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A KIND OF ALCHEMY: MEDIEVAL PERSIAN CERAMICS From the Collection of the Appleton Museum of Art, Ocala, FL
A kind of alchemy” is how 14th-century Persian historian Abu al-­­­Qasam described the art of ceramics. This exhibition showcases the magnificent handiwork of artists living in 9th through 14th-century Iran, the heartland of ancient Persia. Selected from the Appleton Museum of Art’s permanen­­t collection of Islamic art, these 60 ceramic objects present a little known but important, artistic genre. The ceramic works exhibited represent virtually every decorative technique utilized by Persian artists during the medieval period and are divided into six groupings that illustrate specific techniques.

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UNMUTE: TEXT & IMAGE IN AMERICAN ART 1970-2003
This exhibition questions assumptions about the relationship of language and visual art. It explores in depth what happens when artists indulge that "fundamental impulse... to breach the supposed boundaries" between the verbal and the visual. Organized by the University Art Gallery at New Mexico State University at Las Cruces from their permanent collection, Unmute asks: how do we achieve a transcendent aesthetic experience in a lightning-fast, disposable age, when information is consumed at a rate of a thousand clicks per day? The prints, photographs, artist’s books, and mixed media works in this exhibition deny an instant read; we skim at the risk of missing much. The fifty-two artists included here have turned up the volume, so to speak, adding linguistic signs to the “mute” images they create. Unmute provides evidence that the mingling of verbal and visual sign systems is as cogent as ever. The exhibition includes 38 framed works and 14 artists' books by artists including Sue Coe & Holly Metz, Ruth Laxson, Shiro Ikegawa, Joni Maabe, George Rickey, Terry Allen, William Wiley, Larry Rivers, Carrie Mae Weems, Jaune Quick to See Smith, Enrique Chagoya & Albert Rios, Sol LeWitt, Liliana Porter, and many others. ­­The exhibition will premiere at NMSU in August 2010.

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JOHN PAUL JONES: THE PURSUIT OF BEAUTY’S PERFECT PROOF
John Paul Jones was widely exhibited and celebrated as an artist in the 19­­50s, 60s and 70s-both internationally and in Southern California. He was also acknowledged as the founder of the printmaking programs at UCLA and at UCI. By the 1960s, Jones was recognized as one of the pioneers of the renaissance in American printmaking spearheaded by Mauricio Lasansky with whom he studied at the University of Iowa. Always known as an "artist's artist," he was one of the stars of the early Los Angeles contemporary art scene exhibiting at the Felix Landau Gallery. He was given his first, major solo exhibition in 1963 at the Brooklyn Museum and a retrospective at the Municipal Art Gallery in Los Angeles in 1984. Jones's artwork appears in over 50 public art collections and museums in the United States and internationally including the Brooklyn Museum, the Hirshhorn, and others. This retrospective ex­hibition, which was organized by the Cal State Fullerton Main Art Gallery (where it premiered in 2009), and the accompanying catalog, give definition to his remarkable career as a printmaker, painter, and sculptor and more clearly define Jones's contribution to American Art. A catalog accompanies the exhibition with essays by curator Mike McGee and art historian, Susan Landauer.

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UKUCWEBEZELA: TO SHINE Contemporary Zulu Ceramics
The Ukucwebezela: To Shine exhibition, catalog, and documentary illustrate how Zulu ceramics continue to be produced as used objects and have emerged as a nationally prized artistic medium in the South African post-Apartheid era. Historically made by women to serve beer at gatherings and spiritual ceremonies honoring ancestors, these vessels highlight Zulu artists’ mastery of ceramic burnishing and low-temperature firing. The exhibition features 37 superlative examples of beer vessels created in a traditional style. Audiences will also have the opportunity to see how young artists, including men and women, are finding new ways to express Zulu identity through clay. Artists in the exhibition have participated in the Smithsonian Folklife festival and the Aberystwyth Ceramics Triennial; been featured in publications such as African the Art of a Continent, Women Potters, and Coiled Pottery; and won national and international ceramic awards. The exhibition has been shown at: The African Art Center, Durban, South Africa; Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College, Iowa; Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, Indiana; Gatewood Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Organized by Dr. Elizabeth Perrill, Asst. Prof. of African Art History, UNC, Greensboro.

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BARBARA CRANE:
CHALLENGING VISION
Organized by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. This retrospective exhibition which premiered at the Chicago Cultural Center in 2009, celebrates the 60-year career of Chicago photographer Barbara Crane. Guest curated by Kenneth C. Burkhart, the exhibition is accompanied by a major monograph on the artist. Barbara Crane, artist-photographer and educator, has explored photography as a vehicle for creative expression for over sixty years. The result has been a changing, ongoing body of work conceptually consistent, varied in approach and experimental in style. An early investigator of repetition and deconstruction of visual information, she has experimented with sequences, grids, scrolls, and large modular murals. She continues to work in many formats ranging from the intimate to the large scale and to use diverse materials and processes including platinum-palladium, Polaroid formats, gelatin silver, and digital. Crane has been the recipient of many grants, awards, and fellowships. Her work is represented in major collections including: the George Eastman House, Rochester, NY; the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and the Museum of Modern Art, NY.

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