Kimbell Announces 2011 Shows

The Kimbell Art Museum will be putting major artists in context in 2011 — in particular, through two shows, Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment and Caravaggio and His Circle in Rome. The Caravaggio exhibition — organized by the Kimbell, and the National Gallery of Canada — will feature some 60 paintings by Caravaggio (including, presumably, the Kimbell’s familiar Cardsharps) and other Baroque artists. It comes after a blockbuster exhibition this summer in Rome at the Scuderie del Quirinale, which contained 25 paintings by Caravaggio alone, demonstrating — if demonstration were needed — of the bold and violent artist’s continuing appeal. Picasso and Braque, meanwhile, will concentrate on a pivotal moment in modern art — when the two men invented Analytic Cubism.

The Kimbell just opened Salvator Rosa: Bandits, Wilderness and Magic, which will continue through March 27, while the current Maya exhibition, Fiery Pool, will close January 2.

The full release follows.

December 14, 2010

KIMBELL ART MUSEUM, FORT WORTH

2011 SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS

FORT WORTH—The Kimbell Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, announces its 2011 schedule of exhibitions. Highlights include an intimate exhibition that will showcase paintings and prints by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, examining the close interaction that led to the revolutionary artistic movement known as Analytic Cubism. A major exhibition opening at the Kimbell next fall, Caravaggio and His Circle in Rome, will feature some of the most celebrated masterpieces of this seminal artist and explore his impact on his European contemporaries.

“I am thrilled to present the works of these old and modern masters at the Museum,” commented Eric M. Lee, director of the Kimbell Art Museum. “Next year will be an exciting one for the Kimbell and its patrons. In these exhibitions we’ll be looking at moments when European art changed decisively and dramatically thanks to a handful of boldly innovative painters.”

2011 Exhibition Schedule

Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea

Through January 2, 2011

Organized by the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.

Salvator Rosa: Bandits, Wilderness, and Magic

Through March 27, 2011

Organized by the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth

Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 1910–1912

May 22–August 21, 2011

Organized by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth

Caravaggio and His Circle in Rome

October 16, 2011–January 8, 2012

Organized by the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth

Exhibition Descriptions

Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea

Through January 2, 2011

Rarely does an exhibition offer an entirely fresh way of viewing the art of a great civilization. Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea does exactly that. Over 90 works, many recently excavated and never before seen in the United States, offer exciting insights into the culture of the ancient Maya, focusing on the sea as a defining feature of the spiritual realm and the inspiration for powerful visual imagery.

The exhibition reflects the broad range of media used by Maya artists: massive, carved stone monuments and delicate hieroglyphs; exquisite painted pottery vessels; charming sculpted human and animal figurines; and a lavish assortment of precious goods crafted from jade, gold, and turquoise. The first section of the exhibition, Water and Cosmos, explores water as the vital medium from which the world emerged, gods arose, and ancestors communicated. The objects in the second section, Creatures of the Fiery Pool, portray a wide array of fish, frogs, birds, and mythic beasts inhabiting the sea and conveying spiritual concepts. Navigating the Cosmos explores water as a source of material wealth and spiritual power. The final section, Birth to Rebirth, addresses the cyclical motion of the cosmos as the Maya pictured it.

Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea was organized by the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA, and has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Additional support is provided by ECHO (Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations). The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Salvator Rosa: Bandits, Wilderness, and Magic

December 12, 2010–March 27, 2011

The history of art has known many rebels, but none quite like the 17th-century Italian painter Salvator Rosa (1615–1673). Fiercely independent and powerfully inventive, he charmed noble and princely patrons only to spurn them; he explored dark and brooding subjects that ran counter to mainstream tastes; and he risked numerous enemies with his biting satirical poems. Through it all, he created some of the most evocative paintings of his age—landscapes, fanciful portraits, scenes of witchcraft and magic, altarpieces, and subjects derived from classical literature. He is most widely known for his landscapes, with their craggy ravines, crumbling towers, and suggestive light effects, but there is much more to Rosa, as this exhibition demonstrates with 36 of his best paintings, covering all his favorite genres. This is the first major exhibition of his art held in the United States.

The works will be grouped by theme, beginning with self-portraits and fanciful heads. One of the anchors of this section is Self-Portrait with a Skull, in which the long-haired Rosa meditates on death. Landscapes come next, and among the star attractions is a coastal scene that Rosa painted for King Philip IV of Spain. Rosa’s paintings about magic and the natural sciences are some of his most spellbinding works and include Jason and the Dragon, which inspired J. M. W. Turner in the 19th century. The exhibition concludes in stunning fashion with a selection of his intense and eccentric figure paintings.

Salvator Rosa: Bandits, Wilderness, and Magic is organized by the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 1910–1912
May 22–August 21, 2011

Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 1910–1912 is an intimately scaled exhibition that features 15 paintings and some 20 drawings and etchings, all conceived and executed by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso during one of the most fecund and intensely experimental exchanges in the entire history of Western art. This select group of works will reveal the intriguing pictorial game that played out between these two great masters and fed into the invention of the revolutionary art form now known as Analytic Cubism.

Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 1910–1912 has been organized by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth.

Caravaggio and His Circle in Rome

October 16, 2011–January 8, 2012

This ambitious exhibition explores the profound impact of the work of Caravaggio (Italian, 1571–1610) on a wide range of painters of Italian, French, Dutch, Flemish, and Spanish origin who resided in Rome either during his lifetime or immediately afterwards. Not since Michelangelo or Raphael had one artist affected so many of his contemporaries over such a broad geography and so irrevocably changed the course of painting in a major artistic center. About 60 paintings by Caravaggio and some of the most important artists of the Baroque period will be included.

Caravaggio and His Circle in Rome is organized by the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth.

Kimbell Art Museum

The Kimbell’s collection consists of about 350 works that not only epitomize their eras and styles, but also touch individual high points of aesthetic beauty and historical importance. The holdings extend from antiquity to the 20th century, including European masterpieces by artists ranging from Fra Angelico, Michelangelo, and Caravaggio to Cézanne and Matisse; important collections of Egyptian, Near Eastern, Greek, and Roman antiquities; an extensive collection of Asian art; and works from Mesoamerican and African cultures.

Designed by famed architect Louis I. Kahn, the Kimbell Art Museum’s building is widely regarded as one of the outstanding architectural achievements of the modern era. A second building, designed by world-renowned architect Renzo Piano, is scheduled to open in 2013.

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Images and further press information are available upon request or by visiting www.kimbellart.org

*Admission is always FREE to view the Museum’s permanent collection.

December 2010. Information is subject to change. To confirm dates, or to receive further information, call 817-332-8451. Visit the Kimbell Art Museum’s Web site: www.kimbellart.org

Promotional support provided by American Airlines, NBC5, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Kimbell Art Museum

3333 Camp Bowie Boulevard, Fort Worth, TX 76107