Portraits by Warhol, Chuck Close, Norman Rockwell, & more
PITTSFIELD – The Berkshire Museum will accentuate special exhibition galleries, climate controlled for the first summer in the institution’s 105-year history, with an exhibition showcasing its diverse collection of art from the 17th century to the present. Look at Us, on view July 1 through October 26, 2008, will feature paintings, drawings, photographs, and prints, by artists ranging from Ammi Phillips and Erastus Salisbury Field to John Singer Sargent and Norman Rockwell.The new climate control system will allow the Berkshire Museum to exhibit works on paper from its collection that have rarely or never been seen, including works by Edouard Vuillard and James McNeill Whistler. The exhibition will be complemented with a selection of nine portraits on loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art, including works by Andy Warhol, Chuck Close, and Cindy Sherman. Multimedia elements will include video installations by Berkshire artists and Facebook “portraits” of Berkshire Museum icons including the mummy of Pahat and Wally the Stegosaurus, and a photo booth where visitors may create their own portraits.
On loan from the Whitney Museum will be: Ada (Oval) (1963), by Alex Katz; Edie Sedgwick (1965), Merce (1974), and Edward Kennedy (1980), by Andy Warhol; 2 Tracks (1990) by Lorna Simpson; Mike and Sky (1992) by Catherine Opie; Self Portrait by Chuck Close; Portal (1999) by Ann Hamilton; and Untitled (2000) by Cindy Sherman.
The loans from the Whitney Museum of American Art reciprocate for the loan of the Berkshire Museum’s collection of works by Alexander Calder, to be seen in the Whitney’s exhibition Alexander Calder: The Paris Years. The exhibition will be seen at the Whitney from October 16 through February 15 and later travel to the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and. The Berkshire Museum has lent two early mobiles by Calder (names) and a group of original toy prototypes designed by Calder for the Gould Manufacturing Company. The Berkshire Museum was the first American museum to commission work by Calder, two site specific mobiles in the Berkshire Museum theater.
Among the paintings from the Berkshire Museum collection included in Look at Us will be: Portrait of Henry Clay by Henry Inman, George Washington by Rembrant Peale; three portraits by Ammi Phillips; Norman Rockwell’s portrait of President Eisenhower; Portrait of Mrs. Raphael Pumpelly by John Singer Sargent; Clarissa White by Erastus Salisbury Field; and Portrait of General David Forman by Charles Wilson Peale.
Featured drawings will include, Portrait of Thomas Carlyle by J. M. Whistler; Self-Portrait by Kaethe Kollwitz;. The watercolor Deux femmes dans un interieur by Edouard Vuillard will also be on view. Prints on view will include two lithographs by Childe Hassam, Abstraction by Max Weber. Photographs will include civil war photographs by unknown photographers as well as works by Alfred Stieglitz, George Seeley, and Eduard Steichen.
Berkshire Museum founder Zenas Crane’s interest in Native American culture, evidenced by the museum’s vast collection of art and artifacts, will also be represented by portraits of Native Americans by Langodon Kihn and a group of watercolors of Hopi Indian dancers by an unknown Native American artist.
Guest curator for the exhibition is artist and critic Carol Diehl, contributing editor for Art in America. Diehl will give an introductory lecture on Sunday, June 29, at 1:30 p.m. Her talk is part of a day of opening activities, including family activities and a reception. Admission to the opening is $20 per person or $50 per family ($10/$25 for members).
Every Saturday throughout the exhibition, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., a “Mobile Art Studio” will offer different hands-on activities related to portraiture and identity. Three different themes will rotate at the Mobile Art Studio. “Identity Swap” will encourage visitors to use costumes to change their identities. “Project Artway” will be a fashion design activity. In “Line Up for Art” visitors will use different materials to make self portraits. The Mobile Art Studio activities are included with Berkshire Museum admission.
The Berkshire Museum is located at 39 South Street on Route 7 in Downtown Pittsfield. The galleries are open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sundays noon to 5 p.m. For more information, contact the Berkshire Museum at 413-443-7171, ext. 10, or visit www.berkshiremuseum.org.
