See It All's Spring 2014 Preview

Well, it has been a great pleasure and privilege to see such a wonderful group of exhibitions this fall. My personal favorites would have to be the ICA Boston's Amy Sillman: one lump or two and MIT Museum's 5000 Moving Parts, with WAM's [remastered] close behind. The spring of 2014 has some exciting and varied offerings for See It All. Exhibitions featuring painting, installation, textiles, drawings and rare books and manuscripts will all be opening in and around the Hub.

The Shows

Fans of quilts and textiles can continue their exposure to amazing work started at New England Quilt Museum's The Roots of Modern Quilting by attending their follow-up show Quilting Japan, opening in mid-January.  Then, in April, the MFA mounts Quilts and Color: The Pilgrim/Roy Collection which should present a diverse and masterful array of examples of the quilting art.

Two very interesting examinations of the act and meaning of collecting can be seen by visiting the Currier Museum's collaboration with Andrew Witkin, Exploring the Currier Inside and Out: Andrew Witkin, Among Others. This meditation on collecting and collections can be followed up in April with the Boston Athenaeum's second installment of their Collecting for a New Century, featuring rare books and manuscripts (a personal favorite of VO.)


Another favorite medium of VO is drawing, which will be the subject of a show opening at the Portland Museum of Art in late January. Fine Lines: American Drawings from the Brooklyn Museum, will give New England audiences a rare chance to view these delicate works.

The ICA Boston will provide a dramatic shift from their Amy Sillman show by turning their West Galleries over to unique installation and sound artist Nick Cave, an exhibition that's bound to dazzle.

A deep and stimulating glimpse into a painter's love of place will be featured in the Addison Gallery of American Art's An American in London: Whistler and the Thames. The examination of an artist's treatment of a paricular subject is also the theme of VO's most anticipated show of the spring, PEM's Turner and the Sea opening in May. This show features representations of the sea in the work of England's renowned 19th century painter J.M.W. Turner.

See It All's Most Anticipated Show of Early-2014

PEM/Turner and the Sea opening in May

Enthusiasts for all things nautical can sate their appetite further at the MIT Museum's The Herreshoff Legacy about America's most famous yacht designer (and MIT's own,) Nathaniel G. Herreshoff.

Another show that I am anticipating eagerly is Knights! at the Worcester Art Museum, opening in March. This will be the lead-off public event in the integration of the beloved Higgins Armory Collection into WAM's galleries, collections and programs.  I am fascinated to see how the absorption of the Higgins collection by WAM will play out.  The loss of the Higgins Museum from the Boston-area community of museums is a sad event and I applaud WAM's dedication to making the processing of this collection fairly transparent.  More information on this can be found here.

See It Before It Closes

Closing Dec. 31, Higgins Armory Museum

Closing Jan. 5, ICA Boston/Amy Sillman

Closing Jan. 20, MFA/John Singer Sargent Watercolors

Closing Jan. 20, Gardner Museum/Inscrutable Eye

Closing Feb. 15, Boston Athenaeum/Collecting for a New Century: Painting and Sculpture

Closing Feb. 17, PEM/Impressionists on the Water

Closing March 23, Concord Museum/The Best Workman in the Shop

Closing March 30, MIT Museum/Stanley Greenberg: Time Machines

Spring Preview Links:

• Jan 11, Currier Museum/Exploring the Currier Inside and Out: Andrew Witkin, Among Others http://www.portlandmuseum.org/Content/8141.shtml
• Jan 16, New England Quilt Museum/Quilt Japan  http://www.nequiltmuseum.org/upcoming-exhibitions.html
• Jan 30, Portland Museum of Art/Fine Lines  http://www.portlandmuseum.org/Content/8141.shtml
• Feb 1, Addison Gallery of American Art/An American in London: Whistler and the Thames http://www.andover.edu/Museums/Addison/Exhibitions/WhistlerThames/Pages/default.aspx
• Feb 5, ICA Boston/ Nick Cave http://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/exhibit/nick-cave/
• March, WAM/Knights! http://www.worcesterart.org/Director/higgins-collection/
• April 6, MFA/Quilts and Color http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/quilts-and-color
• April, Boston Athenaeum/Collecting for a New Century  http://www.bostonathenaeum.org/node/153
• Spring, MIT Museum/The Herreshoff Legacy  http://herreshoff-legacy.mit.edu/

Most looking forward to:

• May 31, PEM/Turner & the Sea http://www.pem.org/exhibitions/163-turner_the_sea

Boston Athenaeum/Collecting for the Boston Athenaeum in the 21st Century

William McGregor Paxton, Elizabeth Vaughan Okie, ca. 1895

Link to the Exhibition Website: http://www.bostonathenaeum.org/node/1856

Curator: David Dearinger, Susan Morse Hilles Curator of Paintings and Sculpture and Director of Exhibitions

PR Buzz: Collecting for a New Century: Paintings and Sculptures is the first in a series of four exhibitions that will be held in the Athenæum’s Norma Jean Calderwood Gallery between 2013 and 2018. Respectively, these exhibitions will focus on paintings & sculpture; rare book; maps; and prints & photographs. Collectively, they will celebrate the Athenæum’s continuing commitment to scholarship, preservation, and the dissemination of knowledge as represented by its extensive collections of rare and unique materials.

Recommended For: a mid-morning escape on Beacon Hill

Experience:
Collecting for a New Century is a fascinating assemblage of objects acquired by the Athenaeum since 2000. Dearinger has arranged the show into a neo-classical sequence of portraiture, figural work, landscape, still life, cityscape and genre works. He has also penned a thorough guide and checklist which makes for good reading after having seen the exhibition. When I visited the cozy galleries on the first floor of the Perkins mansion, I was the only one viewing the show which allowed me to take my time and intimately take in a selection of works with surprising emotional range.

In my own mind, a few of my favorite works rearranged themselves into a new set of categories. 

There was the Curiously Intriguing, encompassing Enrico Meneghelli's Studio Interior (1879) and Picture Galleries, the Museum of Fine Arts at Copley Square (1877), David D. Neal's Winter Fishing on the Charles River (1857) and Russell Smith's Study for the Drop Curtain of the Boston Theatre (1864).

The Delicately Beautiful, with William Trost Richard's Breakers and Dunes (ca. 1885) and Maurice Prendergast's Telegraph Hill, Nahant (1896-97).

The Surprisingly Emotional, featuring John Sloan's defiant Miss Boston (1935), William McGregor Paxton's effusively romantic Elizabeth Vaughan Okie (ca. 1895) and Alexander Brooks's warmly affectionate Going, Going, Gone (Peggy Bacon) ( n.d.).

And then there was the Downright Funny, with Polly Thayer's Shopping for Furs (1943), George Deem's George Washington and His Portrait (1972) and Peter Lyons's Kaleidoscope (2011).

A small show to be sure, but one you will be happy you saw.

-Vident Omnes