Fort Worth, TX, December 2, 2013

Special Exhibitions

Art and Appetite: American Art, Culture, and Cuisine

February 22–May 18, 2014
This mouthwatering exhibition of 60 paintings explores the art and culture of food, investigating the many meanings and interpretations of dining in America. Depictions of food in art frequently celebrate the pleasures of eating: elegant and orderly arrangements of cookies or cakes, lavish and overflowing arrays of fruit, or the remnants of a gluttonous feast all convey the passion for consumption. Yet paintings of edibles also speak volumes about their cultural context. From this country’s earliest years, American artists have used still-life painting to express cultural, political and social values, elevating the subject to a significant artistic language. The topic of food allowed American artists both to celebrate and critique their society, expressing ideas relating to politics, race, class, gender, commerce, and how these categories define American identity. Art and Appetite includes many iconic works such as Nighthawks (1942) by Edward Hopper, Freedom from Want (1942) by Norman Rockwell, and Campbell’s Soup (1965) by Andy Warhol. Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine was organized by the Art Institute of Chicago. It is supported in part by generous contributions from Central Market, the Fort Worth Promotion and Development Fund, and the Ben E. Keith Foundation.

Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist

June 14–September 7, 2014
Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist is the first retrospective of the American artist’s paintings in two decades. Archibald John Motley Jr. (1891–1981) is one of the most significant yet least known 20th-century artists, despite the continued broad appeal of his paintings. Many of his most important portraits and cultural scenes remain in private collections and few museums have had the opportunity to acquire his work. In a survey that spans 40 years, Archibald Motley introduces the artist’s colorful canvases to a wider audience and reveals the rich sociological and art historical underpinnings of his work.

Archibald Motley includes 43 works spanning each period of Motley’s career, from 1919 to 1960. Motley’s scenes of life in an African-American community, often in his native Chicago, depict a parallel existence of labor and leisure. Motley was born in New Orleans, but during the first half of the 20th century he lived and worked in a predominately white neighborhood on Chicago’s Southwest side, a few miles from the city’s growing black community known as “Bronzeville.” His portraits are voyeuristic, but they are also examinations of race, gender and sexuality. The exhibition also features his noteworthy depictions of Jazz Age Paris and 1950s Mexico. Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist is made possible by the Terra Foundation for American Art; the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor; and the Henry Luce Foundation. Major support is provided by the Wyeth Foundation for American Art.

Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River

October 2, 2014–January 18, 2015
Navigating the West, a dynamic exhibition featuring 17 iconic river paintings and nearly 40 drawings, reveals for the first time how George Caleb Bingham (1811–1879) created his art and artistic persona at a time when American painting, like the country, was dramatically shifting. Then and now our nation’s waterways—how they are used, controlled, and the lives of the people closest to them—remain a current and important issue. Navigating the West has been organized by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, and the Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. It is supported in part by generous grants from the Henry Luce Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Fort Worth presentation is supported by the Mr. And Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts. After premiering at the Amon Carter, the exhibition travels to the Saint Louis Art Museum, on view from February 22–May 17, 2015. It closes in New York at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from June 15–September 20, 2015.

Also on View

James McNeill Whistler: Lithographs from the Steven L. Block Collection at the Speed Art Museum

January 25–April 27, 2014
American-born James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) spent his adult life in three of Europe’s most picturesque cities: London, Paris, and Venice. While he is best known for his exquisite painted portraits, he is also recognized as a gifted printmaker who pushed the mediums of lithography and etching into new directions. This exhibition showcases the outstanding collection from the Speed Art Museum and represents the full range of Whistler’s lithographic career, from his early experiments in 1878 to the last works he produced before abandoning the medium in 1897. It consists of over 40 exceptional examples of the artist’s technique and includes his ethereal images of London’s the River Thames at night, as well as his daringly modern depictions of family and friends. The exhibition is accompanied by eight of Whistler’s etchings from the Amon Carter’s collection. James McNeill Whistler: Lithographs from the Steven L. Block Collection at the Speed Art Museum has been organized by the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky.

Underground: Photographs by Kathy Sherman Suder

March 15–August 17, 2014
Photographer Kathy Sherman Suder gained international acclaim in 2004 for her poetic, oversized color close-ups of men boxing. Now she returns with an intimate sonnet to urban transit. The culmination of more than six years of photographing people riding the subways of London, New York and Tokyo, this exhibition of 12 oversized works, reflects a symphony of performance. On Suder’s confined stage, private and public collide, everyone watches each other, and love, friendship and solitude play out in constant entertaining charge. The exhibition is accompanied by the artist’s new book Underground: London, New York, Tokyo.

Enriching the Collection: Gifts from Joan and John Richardson

April 19–August 24, 2014
This past year Joan and John Richardson, longtime patrons of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, generously gifted 17 works on paper to the museum’s permanent collection. This gift encompasses an array of prints and drawings by a diverse group of American artists who worked in different time periods and different regions across the country. From an exquisite early 20th-century lithograph of the Grand Canyon by Philadelphia printmaker Joseph Pennell, to a late 20th-century symbolic print of the four seasons by Houston artist John Biggers, the Richardson gift reflects the couple’s broad and exceptional taste in acquiring fine art. Enriching the Collection features the gifted works alongside artworks from the museum’s permanent collection to reveal how one couple’s generous contribution to the Amon Carter enlarges and diversifies the museum’s holdings in illuminating new ways.

Meet Me at the Trinity: Photographs by Terry Evans

September 6, 2014–March 15, 2015
In conjunction with the exhibition Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River, the Amon Carter has commissioned Chicago-based artist Terry Evans to photograph the Trinity River as it runs through Fort Worth. Evans is one of the nation’s acclaimed landscape photographers, and her works offer Amon Carter visitors an opportunity to think about our local river in the context of Bingham’s 19th-century work. The exhibition will include approximately 24, large-scale color photographs that depict the river’s look and culture, including its distinct channeling and the people drawn to its banks.

The Amon Carter Museum of American Art offers outstanding exhibitions and public programs for adults and children and is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday until 8 p.m. and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. Admission is always free. More information at www.cartermuseum.org.