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

MFA/John Singer Sargent Watercolors

Bridge of Sighs, 1903-04, courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum

Link to the Exhibition Website: http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/john-singer-sargent-watercolors

Co-Curators: Teresa Carbone, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art from the Brooklyn Museum and Erica Hirshler, Croll Senior Curator of American Painting from the MFA

The PR Buzz: "A triumphant show combines the two best collections of John Singer Sargent's dazzling watercolors."

John Singer Sargent Watercolors, a collaboration between the MFA and the Brooklyn Museum, opened in Brooklyn in April of this year and was on view there until July.  It was greeted with rapturous reviews by the NY media such as the New York Times, the New Yorker and the Wall Street Journal.

Recommended For: an adult excursion to take advantage of a rare opportunity to see an assemblage of exceptional works by a true master of the medium and giant of American art.

The Experience: 

On a chilly November morning, I hurried to the MFA to try and get in before the crowds built up. Watercolors are most rewarding when viewed intimately and a crowded gallery can really impact the gallery experience. Did it work? Not as well as I might have hoped. A crowd of others waited at the Huntington St entrance for the doors to open and most of them, it seemed, had the same destination as I.

As I descended the steps from the Shapiro Courtyard, I was greeted with a really stunning video wall installation of blending detail views of works in the show.  The effect was vibrant and welcoming and brought more than a few people to a stop to enjoy the display.

Turning the corner through the glass doors brought me into a moody blue room hung with exquisite Venetian views.  I had arrived.

The works themselves, it's fair to say, should get top billing in any review: they are exceptional. Sargent's hand is free, immediate, effortless, liquid, his composition stunning.  The works are, at their best, works of genius. The opportunity to see this number of fragile Sargent watercolors together is extremely rare and this show gives what is perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime chance to really appreciate this period of Sargent's life as an artist.

The works are hung grouped by subject matter, an organization that allows the visitor to easily relate adjacent works to each other.  I was surprised sometimes, when I checked the dates of the works, to see the wide span of years over which Sargent would paint works of similar subject matter or composition. The themes are presented in the following order as one moves through the show- In Venice, Arab Encounter, Lying Down, Mountain Heights, Portraits at Hand, Watercraft, At Work, Villa Gardens, the Knoedler Exhibitions and finishing with Sunlight on Stone. Each gallery contained a rich and rewarding selection of paintings.

In short, I loved the works. I did not love the installation. Other than the video wall outside the galleries, there was no big opening visual statement heralding the show. Even as one entered In Venice, the title label for the show was crammed awkwardly in a corner to your left. Too often, the sectional theme signage ended up behind your shoulder as you entered a gallery. The Knoedler Exhibitions section, with its fascinating insight into Sargent's relationship to the art world of his day and the genesis of the remarkable Brooklyn Museum and MFA holdings of his watercolor work, was shunted off in a dead-end appendix gallery. The visually-rich and captivating video demonstrating Sargent's technique in action was far too easily passed by. The loudest visual statement in the closing gallery Sunlight on Stone was the glass door into the lobster trap-like boutique shop dedicated to the exhibition.

My quibbles over the installation aside, John Singer Sargent Watercolors is a not-to-be-missed treasure for American art and painting lovers alike.

While You’re There: See Michelle Finamore's Think Pink, a delightful boutique show with a great installation! See the website here.

Some of My Favorites:

Early, but not early enough!

Bedouin Women, 1905-06

Poperinghe: Two Soldiers, 1918

Simplon Pass: The Green Parasol, about 1911

Spanish Soldiers, about 1903

Unloading Plaster, about 1908

La Biancheria, 1910