The World’s Greatest Living Glassblower: Lino Tagliapietra

This post comes to us from Jenny Haskins, Curatorial Intern

From Tagliapietra’s Dinosaur series

Glassblowing was always a fascinating and curious medium to me. The ability to create delicate three-dimensional forms through rugged heating and cooling processes is attractively foreign. Glass is a material used on a daily basis throughout the world, however, it is moving beyond the realm of strictly functional objects and becoming increasingly understood and appreciated as fine art. Lino Tagliapietra is a contemporary glass artist currently featured in a Davis Gallery Exhibition, A Joint Venture: The Collection of Thomas and Kathryn Cox. He produces his work in series usually based on famous landmarks or cities he has visited. Dinosaur, in the Cox Collection, is a black-striped organic form mixing rigid and smooth textures. It belongs to a series of work inspired by marine animals, depicting organic forms with long necks extending from oval cores. In the artist’s words, this series integrates “the strength of the dinosaur with the fluidity of the fishes that inhabit the waters of Venice.” I found its presence here at the NBMAA to be a great opportunity to explore the world of glass art and become more familiar with one of its best known artists.

Tagliapietra was born in Murano, Italy in 1934 where he apprenticed under internationally known Muranese master, Archimede Seguso (1909-1999), beginning at the age of eleven. By 21, he earned the title: maestro vetraio (master glassblower), and continued to work in the finest Muranese glass factories for the next 25 years. Becoming a master glassblower is a painstakingly long experience which requires exposure to a scientific environment for multiple years. The United States does not offer many courses in learning these scientific fundamentals (which may be why I find the medium so foreign), therefore European courses are more ideal. Murano, the glassblowing capital of the world, provides the finest programs to become the master of the craft, not to mention its very artistically inspiring landscapes and scenery.

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The World of Toulouse-Lautrec: Dragging Art through the Gutter?

This post comes to us from Sarah Churchill , Curatorial Intern.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901)

One of the perks of interning here at the New Britain Museum of American Art is access to the museum’s excellent programming, including last month’s symposium “Toulouse-Lautrec & His World Under the Microscope.”  Art historian Nancy Noble presented thought-provoking insights into the inhabitants of Lautrec’s world, while Rhea Higgins focused her attentions upon the many parallels between Lautrec and his contemporary Edgar Degas. Degas, aware of the so-called “parallels” famously said of Lautrec, “He wears my clothes but cuts them down to his size.” Ouch.

I was struck also by the comparison drawn by Noble between Lautrec and Andy Warhol. Both were printmakers and savvy, self-conscious marketers who worked tirelessly to elevate the genre of commercial art. Both suffered crippling disabilities and terrible isolation. This connection is probably the most poignant, for it was the experience of isolation that formed, not only the love of art in each of them, but also the sadness and longing that underscores their work. More fascinating still is their shared interest in the popular culture of their day. It would not at all seem strange to picture the two, side-by-side, holding court at Studio 54. Both Lautrec and Warhol blurred the line between life and art to the point that it can be tough to tell which is the reflection…

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KNOW/NOW – Contemporary Interrogations: Eric Souther

For the purpose of these interrogations, the Museum has developed a series of questions for exhibiting contemporary artists in an attempt to enliven and explore the discourse between the artist and the institution – with specific focus on site, interpretation, relevance, process, and sources.

Eric Souther builds and utilizes his own software, manipulating video and sound to explore how technology shapes experience and communication in our contemporary culture. His individualistic artistic explorations of the unseen network of the digital age reveal the experiences of modern life “saturated with digital information.”

Souther’s “Chair” is on view at the NBMAA until March 31st.
Search Engine Vision “Chair”, 2009. Eric Souther. Single-channel video.

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The Lowdown on Lithography

This post come to us from Alyssa Speranza, Curatorial Intern.

If you haven’t already visited Toulouse-Lautrec & His World, then you should! If you have already seen it, you may have wondered, What is a lithograph? Why was it Toulouse-Lautrec’s medium of choice? And how did he print with so many colors?

Lithography is a method of printmaking that involves the use of limestone – the word “lithography” quite literally means “to write with stone.” But the question what is a lithograph can only be truly answered through observation or hands on experience. This video produced by the Museum of Modern Art provides a concise demonstration.
http://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/videos/151/939

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Why Toulouse-Lautrec? Why here?

This post comes to us from Ronald Abbe, Museum Docent.

Jane Avril, 1895. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). Color lithograph. Herakleidon Museum, Athens, Greece

Toulouse Lautrec has come to the New Britain Museum of American Art. Is he an alien presence or a comfortable fit?  The answer is obvious when one views the connections between his art and the work that emulates it elsewhere in the Museum.

Lautrec was an innovator.  He tried to find a way to capture a moment in the most dramatic way possible.  His cropped compositions make his scenes seem to be glimpsed in passing.  The asymmetry of his arrangements and the daring exaggeration of figures and faces make his scenes come alive.  These effects were startling in the late l9th century but so were photography and the new printing process of lithography.  Quickly, the public found his poster lithographs exciting, and soon there was a craving in Paris for all things new.

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Painting Connecticut: The Lyme Art Colony

This post comes to us from Gina Ciralli, Curatorial Intern.

Church at Old Lyme, 1905. Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). Oil on canvas, 35 1/2 x 32 1/4 in. Abright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY.

“What he loved best were the pastures of Southern New England in the later autumn after the deciduous trees had shed their leaves and great white oaks and graceful birches stood singly or in groups on gently rolling meadows or moorlands with here and there a glacial boulder or granite ledge out-cropping above the soil.” - Artist Nelson C. White about his father Henry C. White, 1954

Nelson Holbrook White’s (b. 1932) survey exhibition Scenic Spirit is currently on display at the New Britain Museum of American Art.  Nelson’s grandfather, Henry Cooke White (1861-1952) was an acclaimed American painter and member of one of America’s most distinguished art colonies in Old Lyme, Connecticut.  From Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935) to Willard L. Metcalf (1858-1925), the colony comprised upwards of 200 artists during its three decades of creating nature-based scenes in oils and pastels.  Inspired by French artists Claude Monet (1840-1926) and Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), the colony defined American Impressionism by commemorating the tranquil aspects of rural New England life through use of vibrant palettes and broken strokes on wood and canvas.

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George Bellows: An American Spectator

This post comes to us from Bethany Gugliemino, Curatorial Intern.

“It seems to me that an artist must be a spectator of life; a reverential, enthusiastic, emotional spectator, and then the great dramas of human nature will surge through his mind.”

The Big Dory, 1913. George Bellows (1882-1925). Oil on panel, 18 x 22 in. Harriet Russell Stanley Fund, 1944.21.

Currently on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. is a retrospective exhibition of American artist George Bellows. This exhibit, which is the first complete exhibit of his career in over thirty years, will feature around 130 paintings, drawings, and lithographs. Among these works is one the NBMAA’s own masterpieces, Bellows’s The Big Dory.

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Duration and Disappearance: Human Existence through the Lens of Atta Kim

This post come to us from Alexandra Nasto, Curatorial Intern.

Museum Project #011, The Field Series, 1997. Atta Kim (b. 1956). Chromogenic print, 122 x 162 cm, 56 x 66 cm

Many modern-day artists are inventors of reality, bringing to life people and places of the past and creating new realms of experience through experimentation with traditional techniques and media. The contemporary art scene is ever ripe with innovative concepts and technologies that inspire artists to push the boundaries of their own work. Atta Kim (b. 1956) is one such photographer whose highly conceptual images have been shown in his native Seoul, South Korea and in international shows from Paris to São Paulo, Copenhagen to Kansas City, and Beijing to Berlin. Kim’s work arrives in Connecticut this summer, when seven magnificent, large-scale photographs will be displayed at the New Britain Museum of American Art. The New/Now: Atta Kim exhibition is the latest in the museum’s New/Now series for emerging contemporary artists, and will be on view from August 25^th to November 25^th.

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Straddling the Atlantic: European Influences on the American Art of the Weir Family

This post comes to us from Sara Cotter, Curatorial Intern.

Taking the Veil, 1863, Robert Walter Weir (1803-1889). Oil on canvas, 49 1/2 x 39 3/4 in. Yale University Art Gallery.

The works included in the exhibition, The Weir Family, 1820-1920: Expanding the Traditions of American Art, which will be on view in the McKernan Gallery from June 30^th until September 30^th, illustrates the influence that travel and study in Europe had on the developing art of America in the 19th century. This phenomenon is exemplified by the work of the three Weirs represented: Robert Walter Weir and his sons, John Ferguson Weir and Julian Alden Weir. All three men studied in Europe as part of their artistic training and subsequently had long and successful careers back home in America, as artists and art instructors. The Weir dynasty represents almost a century of artistic production, during which major changes were occurring in the nature of American art and its relationship to the art centers of Europe – changes in which the Weirs figured prominently.

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Digital Media: Changing the Face of 21st Century Illustration

Red Head, 1982. Barbara Nessim
(b.1939) Digital illustration (Norpak II computer; ilfochrome print), 30 3/4” x 26 1/2”. Collection of the artist.

This post comes to us from Alex Salazar, Curatorial Intern.

“Since the dawn of picture-making, illustrators have taken the tools available to them to document and react to the world around them,” explains Scott Bakal, the curator of Pixelated: The Art of Digital Illustration.  The face of art is constantly changing, and new tools like Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter are exposing artists to a virtually unlimited range of possibilities.  On view at the New Britain Museum of American Art’s Low Illustration Gallery until Dec. 9^th, 2012, this exhibition showcases “the brilliant ideas and processes that go into making illustrations today.”

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