AUGUST 16-22

CONNECTICUT

Slant-Front Desk, Bristol, Rhode Island, 1740–60. Walnut and ash(?) and maple inlay (primary); chestnut and pine (secondary). Private collection [RIF1642]. Photo: Christopher Gardner.

Art and Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650–1830, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
August 19, 2016-January 8, 2017
On Friday, August 19, the Yale University Art Gallery will unveil Art and Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650–1830. The fascinating and comprehensive exhibition will present Rhode Island furniture from the colonial and early Federal periods, including elaborately carved chairs, high chests, bureau tables, and clocks. The show will bring together over 130 objects from museums, historical societies, and private collections, including pieces by some of the state’s most revered makers, such as John Townsend. Together, the works illustrate the myriad aesthetic innovations that originated in the region during the period. Click here to continue reading.

NEW YORK

Zulma Steele, Drop-Front Desk with Three Iris Panels, 1904. Cherry wood, stain, 50 3/8 x 38 3/4 x 16 inches. Photo Matthew Ferrari.

Byrdcliffe’s Legacy: Handmade in the 20th Century (An Ode to Nature and Place), Byrdcliffe Kleinert/James Center for the Arts, Woodstock, NY
August 19-October 9, 2016
The Byrdcliffe Arts Colony was founded in 1902 by Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead—an Englishman who had studied under the art critic John Ruskin. Comprising thirty buildings on 1,500 sprawling acres just outside of Woodstock, New York, the compound was regarded as a utopian Arts and Crafts community. This exhibition features works by local artists who lived and worked in the area between 1903 and 1999 that align with Byrdcliffe’s original mission to celebrate nature and promote innovative, high-quality handcrafted work, including furniture, jewelry, and fine art. An Ode to Nature and Place includes pieces by such luminaries as George Ault, George Bellows, William Hunt Diederich, Mary Frank, Milton Glaser, Philip Guston, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi. Click here to continue reading.

CALIFORNIA

Chaise lounge, Harold Greene, cedar of Lebanon, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.

Windfall by Box Collective, Craft & Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles , CA
On view through September 13, 2016
Windfall presents new works from members of Box Collective—a Los Angeles-based group of designers dedicated to creating innovative and sustainable furniture and functional objects. While Box Collective works are decidedly modern, they are often made using traditional techniques. The exhibition will feature fifteen works of furniture, sculpture, and domestic pieces made from trees in northeastern Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley that fell during the historic windstorm of 2011. The collective waited four years for the wood to air-dry before creating the works on display. Click here to continue reading.

Arthur Dove (1880-1946) Red Sun, 1935. Oil on canvas, 20 1/4 x 28 inches. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Acquired 1935.

American Mosaic: Picturing Modern Art through the Eye of Duncan Phillips, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA
On view through December 4, 2016
The Washington, D.C.-based art collector and critic, Duncan Phillips, played a pivotal role in introducing modern art to America. Phillips, along with his mother, was also responsible for establishing what is known today as the Phillips Collection—one of the country’s finest modern art museums. Organized by the Phillips Collection, American Mosaic charts the evolution of modern art in America, beginning in the late-nineteenth century and concluding in the 1960s, with the proliferation of Abstract Expressionism. The exhibition presents works by some of Modernism’s most influential figures, including Milton Avery, Alexander Calder, Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Click here to continue reading.

MAINE

Lucas Blalock (United States, born 1978) THIMGS [#15], 2014. From the portfolio skowheganBOX no. 2. Inkjet print in an artist's book, 9 5/16 x 7 7/16 x 7/16 inches. Museum purchase with support from the Irving Bennett Ellis Fund and John and Linda Coleman, 2015.11.4.

Skowhegan at Seventy, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
On view through October 10, 2016
This exhibition commemorates the seventieth anniversary of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture—a celebrated institution in Maine that offers a renowned, nine-week summer residency program that has been attended by a slew of well-known artists, including Alex Katz, Philip Pearlstein, and Philip Guston. Skowhegan at Seventy will feature works by recent alumni, including SkowheganBOX no. 2—a portfolio of photographs made by  Lucas Blalock, Brian Bress, John Houck, and Letha Wilson—as well as works that document the seventy-year history of the organization. Click here to continue reading.

MINNESOTA

Robert Polidori, Edificio Solimar, Soledad #205 (Between San Lázaro and Animas), Centro Habana, Cuba, 2001. Fujicolor Crystal Archive Print, flush-mounted, 41 7/8 x 32 1/2w inches. Collection of Minnesota Museum of American Art. Gift of Martin Weinstein.

Brick x Brick, Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul, MN
August 18-December 30, 2016
Brick x Brick sheds light on the architectural process behind our cities and built environments via works in a range of media, including photography, painting, sculpture, drawing, and craft. The exhibition includes pieces by thirty artists, including Julie Mehretu, Louise Nevelson, and George Morrison, that illustrate how buildings both enhance and disrupt urban landscapes. Visitors are taken on a global architecture tour, hopping from Cuba’s vibrant Modernist structures to the mass-produced strip malls of middle America. Together, the works on view illustrate how society and architecture have affected each other throughout history. Click here to continue reading.

WISCONSIN

Pieter Lastman (Dutch, 1583–1633) The Angel with Manoah and His Wife, 1617. Oil on panel, 13 13/16 × 11 15/16 inches (35.1 × 30.3 cm). Collection of Isabel and Alfred Bader TL2016.WISCOL.8.11.

From Rembrandt to Parmigianino: Old Masters from Private Collections, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
On view through October 23, 2016
Visitors to the Milwaukee Art Museum have the exceedingly rare chance to see Old Master paintings from numerous private collections thanks to the exhibition, From Rembrandt to Parmigianino. The show features works culled from world-class collections located within a few hundred miles of the institution. From Rembrandt to Parmigianino coincides with the recent gift of two Old Master paintings by Jacopo Vignali and Onofrio Gabrielli  from the Milwaukee-based collector, Alfred Bader. Bader has assembled one of the most comprehensive collections of Dutch and Flemish paintings, many of which are included in the exhibition. Click here to continue reading.

NORTH CAROLINA

Paul van Somer, Christian, Lady Cavendish, Later Countess of Devonshire (1598–1675), and Her Daughter, 1619. Oil on canvas, 51 1/2 x 41 1/2 inches. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Luther Hartwell Hodges.

History and Mystery: Discoveries in the NCMA Collection, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
On view through March 19, 2017
This Old Master exhibition is anchored by a group of nine Elizabethan and Jacobean aristocratic portraits that have been the focus of a six-year research and conservation project involving the North Carolina Museum of Art’s Conservation and Curatorial departments and students and faculty from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill and Duke University. The paintings were donated to the museum in  1967 by the local collector James MacLamroc. Because of their condition, the works have rarely been exhibited. In addition to this core group of portraits, History and Mystery will include works by Anthony van Dyck, Paul van Somer, Thomas Gainsborough, and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Click here to continue reading.