chesney 1

European Museum

European Museum of Modern Glass, Coburg, Germany Acquisition and Exhibition

Lull (Windstille), 2006

From Pedestal to Wall – On the Positioning of Works of Art in Glass
April 23, 2021 to November 7, 2021

In the early days of the studio glass movement, glass artists almost exclusively made objects that stood protected in glass display cabinets. In the 1980s, glass sculptures conquered the elevated pedestal. For a good ten years now, more and more artworks have emerged that require a wall to be displayed. This is no coincidence. Because this development runs parallel to the establishment of glass as a material in art. The special exhibition is dedicated to the phenomenon that works of art are created for a specific place.

On display are 30 objects from the 1970s to the present. The range of techniques and themes is broad: visitors can see early decorative glass works and objects that explore optical phenomena and work with light and reflections. Alongside works that tell stories and convey messages, there are also landscapes and abstract murals. Classical stained glass, which is often architecture-related, is excluded.

Works of art from the museum’s own collection as well as selected loans from artists will be presented, including works by Carl Bens, Nicole Chesney, Hartmann Greb, Jens Gussek, Palo Macho, Heinz Mack, Uta Majmudar, Gerhard Ribka, Renato Santarossa, Verona Schatz, Keiyona C. Stumpf, Veronika Suter, Harry Zengeler and Jeff Zimmer

New Britain Museum of American Art

New Britain Museum of American Art

New Britain Museum of American Art Acquisition and Exhibition

Aphros, 2017

Permanent Collection Installation: Recent Gifts and Acquisitions

Show runs Thursday, June 17, 2021 —  Sunday, July 25, 2021

The New Britan Museum of American Art is thrilled to present a selection of acquisitions and gifts that have entered the Museum’s collections in the last five years, currently on view throughout our second floor in Robert and Dorothy Vance Gallery, Stitzer Family Gallery, and nearby A.W. Stanley Gallery. These works, many on view for the first time, span over 100 years of American art history and reflect a multitude of important art historical periods and figures. Artists featured are both internationally recognized and locally beloved, and include Milton Avery, Joan Snyder, Elizabeth Catlett, Jim Dine, Abraham Rattner, Cauleen Smith, Betye Saar, Shantell Martin, Carol Summers, Leonard Everett Fischer, Kara Walker, Paul Baylock, Carrie Mae Weems, Eric Aho, Joseph McNamara, Nicole Chesney, Stephanie Syjuco, Martine Gutierrez, and many others.

In Stitzer Family Gallery, numerous works by Pop artists and printmakers Jim Dine, Carol Summers, and Gordon Mortensen are on view thanks to the generosity of Dr. Paul M. Kanev, who has long supported these artists. Celebrated Connecticut-based artist and illustrator Leonard Everett Fischer is represented by his surreal painting Arizonascape, 1998, gifted by the Artist. The Museum is also debuting MADRID INTERIOR (Portrait of Antonio López García), 2015 by Joseph McNamara, donated by Gail and Ernst von Metzsch in 2019. In A.W. Stanley Gallery, also on the second floor, a suite of early Milton Avery landscape paintings gifted by Russell N. Shenstone in 2017 are being shown together for the first time, in dialogue with several mature work by Avery.

Purchases on view include numerous works that were acquired as part of the Museum’s 2020/20+Women @ NBMAA initiative dedicated to increasing representation of women in the arts. These include prints, photographs, and sculptures by Betye Saar, Elizabeth Catlett, Carrie Mae Weems, Ana Mendieta, Martine Gutierrez, and the Guerrilla Girls, among many others. With these and other purchases made in 2020 and 2021, the NBMAA has increasingly reflected the diversity of our community and nation, doubling the number of Black and African American female artists and tripling the number of Latin American female artists represented in our permanent collection.

We extend our profound gratitude to those who are able to support the New Britain Museum of American Art through invaluable donations of acquisition funds or artworks that expand and strengthen our collection and provide us with the ability to tell a richer and more nuanced history of American art in our galleries. We are honored to present these and other recent additions to the collection, for the benefit and enjoyment of our Museum visitors for generations to come.