Dates:
October 23, 2010 - January 2, 2011
Location:
Fisher Brooks Gallery, Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building
Description:
Self-portraits - the artist's inner life, outwardly revealed.
Among the most popular paintings in the Pennsylvania Academy’s rich collection are self-portraits and images of studio life by Charles Willson Peale, Benjamin West, William Sidney Mount, Florine Stettheimer, and Margaret Foster Richardson. PAFA’s collection is filled with lively, historically important, and fascinating self-images and portraits of fellow artists by major figures in the history of American art from the early nineteenth-century to the present.
This exhibition is the first to survey the range and depth of PAFA’s holdings of artwork that explores artistic identity from the public to the personal. It will feature a dynamic and wide-ranging group of works exploring the ever-changing, complex, and often funny nature of artistic identity.
Works by artists such as Gertrude Abercrombie, Jack Beal, Julius Bloch, James Brantley, Thomas Eakins, Sylvia Fein, Marshall Glasier, Barkley Hendricks, Emmanuel Leutze, Rob Matthews, William Sidney Mount, Vik Muniz, Walter Murch, John Neagle, Violet Oakley, Elizabeth Osborne, Charles Willson Peale, James Peale, Rembrandt Peale, John Frederick Peto, Huston Ripley, Honoré Sharrer, John Sloan, Thomas Sully, George Tooker, Robert Vonnoh, John Wilde and others will be included.
A small group of loans from private collections will also be included, featuring works by Robert Arneson, William Beckman, Joan Brown, Gregory Gillespie, Juan Gonzales, Archibald Motley, Jr., Gladys Nilsson, and others.
Public programs in conjunction with this show are designed to compliment the themes of identity building and artistic persona found in these fascinating works, from the kickoff event at PAFA After Dark to a series of workshops and artist talks. Or consider bringing a museum staff member out to your organization to talk for free through the Traveling Lecture Series.
Click here to read Edward Sozanski's review in
The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Click here to read Amy S. Rosenberg's article
PAFA presents "Narcissus in the Studio." - Self-portraiture in an age of social navel-gazing in
The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Curator:
Robert Cozzolino, Curator of Modern Art
Sponsors:
Leading support provided by the Richard C. Von Hess Foundation. Additional support from The Newington-Cropsey Foundation, Menconi & Schoelkopf Fine Art, LLC, Gabriele Lee, Linda Seyda and Bob Boris, Dr. Luther Brady, the Ryan Family Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel J. Savitz, and Connie and Jules Kay.
PAFA's special exhibitions in 2010-11 are supported by generous contributions from Donald R. Caldwell, Jonathan L. Cohen, Max N. Berry, Esq., and James C. Biddle.